ROLE OF FINANCIAL TECHNOLOGY ON POVERTY ALLEVIATION IN ASIAN COUNTRIES: MEDIATING ROLE OF INSTITUTIONAL QUALITY

Abstract

Although the rapid development of financial technology has been realized throughout the Asian countries, research studies seldom focus on the growing impact of financial technology on poverty alleviation. The research paper explores financial technology’s effect on poverty alleviation in the Asian countries. The dataset was collected from Asian countries between 2010 and 2021. A web search technology and frequent word analytics tool are employed to conceptualize variables, and after that, each selected region’s financial technology index is constructed. Given the variation in poverty across selected regions, a novel approach of vector quantile regression is used to quantify the effect of financial technology on poverty allocation. The suggested method’s parametric estimators are employed as “location” measurements of poverty. The findings of this research reveal that despite an uneven index of financial technology development across Asian economies, financial technology significantly impacts poverty alleviation in every selected Asian economy. Furthermore, financial technology strongly impacts poverty alleviation in developing economies than emerging economies of Asian countries. Considering the above findings, practitioners, governments and policy-makers need to foster advanced financial technology mechanisms, specifically in developing economies of the selected Asian economies.