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This paper proposes a new multi-dimensional financial inclusion index.

The authors employ two-stage principal component analysis (PCA) and aggregating indicators of availability, access and use. The paper first assesses the cross-country variations in the index and analyses trends over time for a sample of countries members of the Union for the Mediterranean (UfM) from 2010–2018. Second, it investigates factors that could explain the level of financial inclusion across countries.

The financial inclusion index shows a downward trend for the full sample over the period under investigation; however when splitting the sample by income group, it appears that high- and middle–income countries did not register the same trend. When examining the determinants of financial inclusion for the UfM countries, the authors find that macroeconomic, social and governance factors, as well as banking conditions, matter. Policy-makers in low- and middle-income economies should consider the importance of digital financial inclusion, which is substituting the role to traditional banking system, to close the gap and accelerate its development.

First, the authors provide a new measure of financial inclusion using a three-dimensional index: availability, access and use, for which weights are assigned using PCA. It uses data available for the UfM sample by combining data from different databases in order to include most indicators considered in the literature, as the majority of studies only use single measures (number of bank branches, ownership of a bank account, ratio of credits or deposits to gross domestic product [GDP], etc.). Second, by focussing on UfM countries, the study covers a region that includes both large developed and small developing economies that are connected via financial and trade ties, whilst previous studies generally give global evidence from an international sample with little or no economic ties. Third, splitting the sample by country income groups, the paper presents a more comprehensive representation of the cross-country variation in financial inclusion levels between high- and middle-income economies for this region.

The purpose of this paper is to study the ownership‐liquidity relation in the context of the Tunisian Stock Exchange.

In particular, the paper examines two empirical relationships: the relationship between ownership concentration and stock liquidity and the relationship between the separation of ownership from control and market liquidity.

The empirical findings verify that the structure of ownership remains concentrated in the majority of the Tunisian firms. It is found that stock liquidity decreases significantly with concentrated ownership. Different devices are used to gain control and hence a significant separation of ownership from control affects liquidity in different ways. The results indicate that pyramidal structures have a significant negative impact on liquidity for all controlled firms. However, for family firms, non‐voting shares increase liquidity for minority shareholders by reducing the probability of informed trading.

Overall, this study reports that non‐voting shares may be a liquidity enhancing device for family firms.