Vladyslav Kutsenko

Type of the article: Research Article

Abstract
Global account ownership rose from 51 to 76 percent of adults between 2011 and 2021, much of it through digital channels, yet the depth and innovativeness of national financial systems vary sharply across economies. This study quantifies how the rule of law and the model of digital government relate to two dimensions of financial-sector development, banking-sector depth and digital financial innovation, across developed, developing, and transition economies, and tests whether digital government can substitute for institutional quality. Using a panel of 183 economies over 2000–2021 (estimation window 2003–2021) and a four-wave Global Findex panel, the analysis applies two-way fixed-effects and pooled wave-fixed-effects models with country-clustered standard errors. The rule of law is positively associated with banking-sector depth, but the association is heterogeneous: it is largest and most robust in transition economies (β = 22.17, p = 0.020) and insignificant in developing economies. Digital government, by contrast, is not significantly related to banking-sector depth (p = 0.322) yet is strongly associated with digital financial innovation, where the rule of law also matters; the e-government association is strongest for digital-payment adoption (β = 51.99, p < 0.001). In these cross-country estimates, the rule-of-law × e-government interaction is negative and significant (β = −10.69, p = 0.018), and the marginal association of the rule of law declines by almost half as digital government expands, a pattern consistent with partial substitution. These findings are robust to the 2025 revision of the governance data and to extending the sample through the 2024 Findex wave.

Acknowledgments
This article was prepared based on the results of a study funded by the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine entitled “GovTech for Ukraine: A Digital, Secure, Transparent, and Equitable State in Times of War and Post-War Reconstruction” (registration number: 0126U000544).

Type of the article: Research Article

Abstract
The cost of sending remittances remains above the 3% target of Sustainable Development Goal 10.c.1 even as digital technologies reshape cross-border payments. This study asks which dimension of the digital transformation of remittance markets is associated with lower costs and whether the association survives provider identity. Using the World Bank Remittance Prices Worldwide database (202,851 quotations, 372 corridors, 2016–2025), the study estimates fixed-effects models at the quotation and corridor-year levels with corridor × quarter and provider fixed effects. Three findings emerge. At the market level, corridors shifting toward instant settlement record lower costs (b = −1.12 percentage points, so a 10-point higher instant share corresponds to about 0.11 points), an association that runs through incumbent cash prices, survives stable provider sets, and is concentrated after 2022. At the quotation level, the instant discount (−0.44) reflects provider composition. Money transfer operators supply 94% of instant quotations at half the mean price of banks; within providers, speed carries a premium that eroded from 1.5 points in 2016 to −0.9 in 2025. What providers price lower is digital delivery (−0.9); mobile money is cheapest throughout (−2.85). The discount holds across developing destinations and reverses in high-income ones. Ukraine, Armenia, and Kazakhstan illustrate these margins at different adoption stages, where each point saved supports household resilience, economic security, and human capital. The results support faster end-to-end settlement, complemented by provider presence in low-income corridors, as the margins associated with lower remittance costs.