Julian Jackson Telecommunications

Table 1. Variable definitions and data sources Variable Definition Measurement Source Expected sign FI Formal financial-system access index Average of ATM density and bank-branch density per 100,000 adults IMF Financial Access Survey + FINTECH Mobile-money account penetration Adults with registered mobile-money accounts (%) GSMA mobile-money data; Global Findex; national regulators + FINLIT1 Financial-literacy awareness Survey-based awareness measure aligned to a common scale Global and national financial-literacy surveys + FINLIT2 Financial-literacy knowledge Survey-based financial-knowledge measure; primary moderator Global and national financial-literacy surveys + FINLIT3 Financial-literacy behaviour Survey-based financial-behaviour measure; robustness moderator Global and national financial-literacy surveys + REGQUAL Regulatory quality World Bank governance score (standardised, range approx. −2.5 to +2.5) World Bank Worldwide Governance Indicators +/− INFRA Telecommunications and electricity infrastructure Average of mobile-network coverage and access to electricity (%) ITU DataHub; World Bank WDI + LNGDPPC GDP per capita Real GDP per capita, constant 2015 USD, log-transformed World Bank WDI + INFLATION Inflation rate Annual consumer-price inflation (%) IMF; World Bank WDI − INTERNET Internet penetration Individuals using the internet (% of population) ITU DataHub; World Bank WDI + Notes: ATM = automated teller machine; ITU = International Telecommunication Union; WDI = World Development Indicators; IMF = International Monetary Fund. FINLIT2 is the primary financial-literacy moderator; FINLIT1 and FINLIT3 are alternative survey-based measures used for robustness. The literacy indicators are aligned to common definitions and scales across the underlying survey sources. Because these surveys are not annual in every country, the literacy coefficients should be interpreted as relationships with harmonised survey-based measures rather than as effects of precisely observed annual changes