Lemann Lecture Series | Julia Fonseca | Financial Inclusion, Economic Development, and Inequality: Evidence From Brazil
- Event Type
- Lecture
- Sponsor
- Lemann Center for Brazilian Studies, co-sponsored by Women and Gender in Global Perspectives Program
- Location
- 306 Coble Hall, 801 S Wright Street
- Date
- Oct 31, 2023 12:00 - 1:00 pm
- Speaker
- Julia Fonseca
- Contact
- Lemann Center
- lemann@illinois.edu
- Views
- 111
- Originating Calendar
- Center for the Study of Global Gender Equity
We study a financial inclusion policy targeting Brazilian cities with low bank branch coverage using data on the universe of employees from 2000–2014. The policy leads to bank entry and to similar increases in both deposits and lending. It also fosters entrepreneurship, employment, and wage growth, especially for cities initially in banking deserts. These gains are not shared equally and instead increase with workers’ education, implying a substantial increase in wage inequality. The changes in inequality are concentrated in cities where the initial supply of skilled workers is low, indicating that talent scarcity can drive how financial development affects inequality.
Julia Fonseca is an Assistant Professor of Finance at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She received her PhD in Economics from Princeton University in 2019. Her research interests include household finance, development finance, and labor and finance. Her work focuses on topics like financial development, consumer financial markets, and inequality.