IMPACT OF FINANCIAL INCLUSION ON CHILD MALNUTRITION IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES

The paper empirically inspects the impact of financial inclusion on child malnutrition in developing countries using the panel data for the time span of 2004- 2018.To check the impact, fixed effect model, 2 Stage least square and System GMM estimation techniques are used. The outcomes of the analysis shows that usually the effect of financial inclusion on child malnutrition is negative, supporting results from earlier empirical literature. However, our estimation methodology allows us to investigate further that what leads this overall result. We concluded that that financial inclusion help to decrease child malnutrition, as it would support poor and needy people to handle the difficult situations like child malnutrition as people will have easy access to money and they can treat their child within a time of need. Financial development, per capita income, female education and health expenditure negatively effects child malnutrition while food prices have positive impact on child malnutrition. The bottom line of the analysis is that strong financial sector of any country is an important part that helps to support needy people to deal with uncertain conditions. The study highlights that food security situation should be improved in developing countries so that child malnutrition can be controlled. Government should take certain steps to guide about financial inclusion and provide poor people with these services in the hour of need so that child malnutrition can be controlled in a country that will provide long-term benefits to the economy.