Financial Inclusion and Financialization: Latin American Main Trends after the Great Crisis

Abstract:

In recent decades, the World Bank (WB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) have promoted policies and programs for financial inclusion (FI). This article studies the meaning of the inclusion proposal as well as the main results. The most important argument of this policy is the increase of local savings as the basis of investment and growth. Although this objective has not been achieved, inclusion remains a current policy. In reality, FI has been driven by an underlying agenda, as has been the case of other policies from the same sphere of interests that the Washington Consensus authored at the beginning of the 1990s. Although this denomination has been abandoned due to the loss of prestige it has achieved in the region, its main objectives continue to be promoted by many governments. Also, FI has been a vehicle for deepening financialization.

Keywords::

• financial inclusion
• financialization
• Latin America
• inequality

JEL Classification Codes::

• F43
• F63
• G21
• G28

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Eugenia Correa

Eugenia Correa is a professor at the Economic Faculty, Mexico Autonomous National University. Alicia Girón is a researcher at the Economic Research Institute, Mexico Autonomous National University.

Alicia Girón

Eugenia Correa is a professor at the Economic Faculty, Mexico Autonomous National University. Alicia Girón is a researcher at the Economic Research Institute, Mexico Autonomous National University.