Gana'da dijital finansal katilim ve ekonomik büyüme

This study empirically examines the impact of financial inclusion (FI) on economic growth (EG) in Ghana during the period 2004 to 2023. This study employed Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) cointegration to investigate the cointegration effect between the predictor variable (financial inclusion) and the dependent variable (GDP per capita) while considering macroeconomic control variables (inflation, trade, and population). This study further implemented principal component analysis (PCA) to measure the financial inclusion index (FII) to avoid multicollinearity and reduce dimensionality. The bound test confirmed a strong cointegration effect of GDP per capita and among the predictor variables. The long-run (LR) main findings show that FII has a positive and substantial effect on economic expansion, while trade openness and inflation show a significant negative effect on economic expansion in the LR. The short-run (SR) dynamic main findings indicate that FII and inflation have no immediate effect in the SR. Conversely, population growth revealed a significant negative effect on per capita income in the SR. Moreover, the correlation test analysis further revealed a positive and substantial relationship between FII and economic expansion in Ghana. Therefore, policymakers, financial regulators, and the government of Ghana should expand the leverage of FI by targeting disadvantaged and vulnerable people who lack financial access while stabilizing and managing macroeconomic control variables to promote economic development and financial sustainability in the LR. Additionally, the findings from the literature reveal that DFI has a significant impact on Islamic finance and banking stability, enhancing financial access, operational efficiency and adherence to Shariah-compliant financial services, which leads to inclusive growth.