Self-employment, financial access and economic welfare: empirical evidence from Africa

Purpose This study aims to investigate the empirical linkages between self-employment, financial access and economic welfare in Africa. It particularly examines the moderating role of financial access in the self-employment-economic welfare nexus and determines relevant thresholds. Design/methodology/approach The paper samples 52 African economies from 2000 to 2018 and deploys the fixed effects and bootstrap quantile regression estimators. Findings The results show that self-employment has a negative and significant relationship with economic welfare, while access to finance has a positive and significant relationship with welfare. More notably, the conditional effect of self-employment and finance is significant and positive, confirming a synergetic effect. The result suggests that pushing more people into self-employment does not necessarily enhance economic welfare, other than the avoidance of unemployment, due to the large number of replicative and necessity entrepreneurs. However, granting the self-employed more access to affordable finance that boosts entrepreneurial activities enhances economic welfare. Practical implications African governments and relevant policymakers must recognize that deepening the financial sector is crucial in creating sustainable opportunity entrepreneurs and boosting general economic welfare. Originality/value The uniqueness of this paper centers on the exposé of the relevance of financial access/development in promoting the economic welfare of self-employed persons and entrepreneurs. It also determines relevant thresholds at which finance is most significant in procuring positive impacts on economic welfare. In addition, the simultaneous quantile regression is used to show snapshots of human development index at which this impact is paramount.