Financial Inclusion and Rural Energy Poverty Reduction in Latin America

This study investigates the relationship between financial inclusion and energy poverty reduction, proxied with rural access to electricity and, clean fuels and technologies for cooking, utilising data from 14 Latin American countries from 2004–2020. Evidence from dynamic ordinary least squares, fully modified ordinary least squares, and canonical correlation regression techniques documented that financial inclusion significantly decreases rural energy poverty in Latin America. However, the impact of financial inclusion on rural energy poverty reduction differs considerably among individual Latin American countries. We recommend that policies promoting financial inclusion would reduce rural energy poverty.