Pesos or Plastic?: Financial Inclusion, Taxation, and Development in South America

Shows financial inclusion contributes to better tax collection by encouraging more formal consumer transactions via the use of bank-provided credit and debit cards
Argues that the higher a country’s BPR the greater the economic impact
Includes a case study of Argentina focuses on the intersection of financial inclusion and public revenue or taxation
Finds that changes in formal banking participation rates and increased credit card and debit card use are correlated with increased VAT revenue

Ken Mitchell is chair and associate professor in the Department of Political Science and Sociology at Monmouth University, USA. His political economy research on Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, and The Dominican Republic appears in Bulletin of Latin American Research, The Latin Americanist, Oxford Development Studies, Challenge, Monthly Review, and Journal of Post-Keynesian Economics. He is the author of State-Society Relations in Mexico published by Ashgate (2001).

Robert H. Scott, III is professor in the Department of Economics, Finance, and Real Estate at Monmouth University, USA. He teaches Econometrics; Financial Institutions and Risk Management; Macroeconomics and Political Economy. His research publications focus on consumer debt, applied econometrics, financial literacy, small business financing, financial markets and Kenneth Boulding. He is the author of Kenneth Boulding: A Voice Crying in the Wilderness (2015) published by Palgrave Macmillan and included in the Great Thinkers in Economics book series.