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This study aims to investigate the effect of financial inclusion on economic welfare in three religious country groups: majority Christian countries, majority Hindu countries and majority Muslim countries.

The study analyzed 30 religious countries during the 2004–2020 period using the two-stage least squares regression method. The economic welfare variables are the gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate, GDP per capita growth, inflation rate and the unemployment rate. The main explanatory variable is the composite financial inclusion index. The control variables are corruption control index, political stability index, total population growth, rule of law index and the regulatory quality index.

Financial inclusion is positively correlated with corruption control, political stability, rule of law and regulatory quality in religious countries, whereas financial inclusion is negatively correlated with total population growth, economic growth, GDP per capita growth, inflation rate and unemployment rate in religious countries. Regression results show that high level of financial inclusion decreases the unemployment rate in majority Muslim countries. A preexisting low unemployment rate is significantly associated with higher financial inclusion in majority Christian and Muslim countries. High level of financial inclusion decreases the inflation rate in countries that have significant Islamic finance activity. Financial inclusion has an insignificant effect on economic welfare in majority Hindu countries.

The type of religion and the size of Islamic finance activity matter in understanding the relationship between financial inclusion and economic welfare in religious countries.

To the best of the author’s knowledge, this study is the first to examine financial inclusion dynamics and its effect on economic welfare in the context of the major religions.

This chapter examines the relationship between the gender gap in labor force participation, intensive growth and economic welfare in Sub-Saharan African (SSA) from 1981 to 2020 under the framework of the classical production function. The generalized method of moment (GMM) technique was employed in analyzing the data. The empirical result showed a negative and significant effect of the gender gap in labor force participation on intensive growth. It was also found that the gender gap in labor force participation had a negative and insignificant effect on economic welfare in SSA. Other findings showed that male labor force participation had a positive and insignificant effect on both intensive growth and economic welfare, while female labor force participation had a negative and significant effect on intensive growth and a negative and insignificant effect on economic welfare. Trade openness had a positive and significant effect on both intensive growth and economic welfare. Based on the findings, narrowing the gender gap in labor force participation has to be given more considerable attention in the SSA region.

Paper argues that the proper approach to the topic of economic welfare should include an appreciation that markets are not characterized by an endogenous tendency towards equilibrium. The economists, Schumpeter, Keynes and Minsky are right in this regard as opposed to Adam Smith and contemporary economic orthodoxy. However, today’s liberal political theories largely assumes the tendency towards equilibrium and so are inadequate to deal with economic issues such as economic welfare which arise in conditions of non-equilibrium. The purpose of this paper is to propose Winfield’s reconstruction of Hegel’s social philosophy as more fitted to deal with market realities.

Paper starts with a debate within economics and uses it as a basis to evaluate different schools of normative philosophy. Paper concludes by showing how the preferred philosophy is capable to rule between different economic policies responding to economic disequilibrium.

Hegelian philosophy has capacity to adjudicate between economic policies to resolve market failure that contemporary liberal theory lacks.

Paper provides the ethical justification for economic policies that have heretofore only been recommend by economists.

Paper points to the largely overlooked fact that most contemporary political theory assumes market equilibrium. Paper argues that Hegelian philosophy provides the ethical justification for certain post-Keynesian economic policies, a position no one else is making.

The goal of this paper is to validate the second-order model for the economic welfare scale in the context of violence. This study also aims to assess the relationship between the dimensions of the economic welfare scale’ declining food consumption and loss of income and the overall latent construct and assess the second-order model’s goodness of fit using appropriate fit indices.

The study is cross-sectional with a sample of 600 households from the violent zone, Northwest Nigeria. The data collected was used for confirmatory factor analysis, second-order model evaluation and model fit evaluation.

The second-order model for the economic welfare scale is valid and reliable; the dimensions significantly affect the formation of the overall construct. The model’s goodness of fit fulfilled the relevant fit indices.

The study offers researchers and policymakers practical insights into how each dimension influences the latent operational construct. It, therefore, encompasses replication in all the remaining modules.

The findings offer practical insight to policymakers in designing policies for promoting long-term peace structures and developing mechanisms to assist those who have suffered the greatest economic welfare losses due to violence in Nigeria.

The findings form an essential tool to assess the economic welfare effect in violently affected territories at the micro-level.

The outcomes are ground-breaking by validating the second-order model for the economic welfare scale. And established dimension influences over the overall latent variable.

Details a behavioral theory of economic welfare that overlaps and extends the global theoretical framework contained in Pareto Optimality, with significant public policy implications. The essence of this framework is contained in Adam Smith’s the Wealth of Nations where it is argued that the economic welfare of society cannot be augmented if the material level of well‐being of the working population is reduced, even if the economy experiences growth. Moreover, it is argued that there need not be an equity‐efficiency trade‐off in a competitive market economy to the extent that wages positively affect productivity and do not increase production costs. Therefore, shifting from a low to a high wage economy is welfare improving. Smith, in effect, argues that one can have economic ‘justice’ and economic efficiency where the former is necessary to the latter. The behavioral model of economic welfare paints a dynamic picture of economic welfare in contradistinction to the static framework provided by Pareto Optimality wherein the conditions of Pareto Optimality need not be violated.