Does Branch Religiosity Influence Bank Risk‐Taking?
利用美国银行分支机构数据，研究发现分支机构所在地的宗教信仰程度与银行风险承担负相关，且该效应独立于总部宗教信仰的影响。
Abstract Using branch‐level data on public and private US banking institutions, we investigate the importance of branch religiosity in shaping bank risk‐taking behavior. Our results show robust evidence that branch religiosity is negatively related to bank risk‐taking. This effect persists after controlling for several bank‐level and county‐level variables that might correlate with religiosity. Moreover, this result is robust to controlling for headquarter religiosity, suggesting that the effect of branch religiosity is additive and not washed out by headquarter religiosity. Overall, our findings document that headquarter religiosity does not capture the full effect of religiosity on bank behavior, as claimed by previous research, but that the religiosity of the geographic area in which the bank operates significantly influences bank behavior.