Essays on religion and finance

Abstract

This dissertation consists of three essays on religion and finance. The first chapter presents the influences of religion on the financial development and structure of a country. In a sample of 46 countries between 1996 and 2015, we find that religiosity fosters financial development and a market-based financial structure, whereas religious hierarchy and moderate religious heterogeneity induce financial underdevelopment and a bank-based structure. Furthermore, these religious effects are more pronounced for countries with a weaker contractual environment, supporting the ameliorating role of social trust in a contractual environment. Overall, our study provides the first evidence that religion has a crucial impact on financial development and structure by affecting social trust. The second chapter presents the first comprehensive analysis of the role of national religiosity in corporate innovation. We divide religiosity into five dimensions: ideological, ritualistic, experiential, intellectual, and consequential. For 1,506 firms in 27 countries during the 2012–2014 period, we find that the ideological and ritualistic dimensions promote corporate innovation, whereas the experiential, intellectual, and consequential dimensions hinder corporate innovation. Furthermore, religiosity overall has a positive impact on corporate innovation. Finally, we show that the positive effect of religiosity is more pronounced for firms in Judeo-Christian countries. Overall, we provide the first guideline to understand the diverse and comprehensive effects of religion on corporate innovation. The third chapter presents the impact of religion on the quality of corporate disclosure, focusing on the role of social trust. Using country-level data on religion and disclosure quality from 38 countries, we find that general religiosity is negatively related to both voluntary and mandatory corporate disclosure qualities. Moreover, by dividing religiosity into two groups according to the hierarchy of religions, we find that these negative relationships are more pronounced for non-hierarchical religions. Finally, we show that religious heterogeneity is positively associated with both disclosure qualities. Overall, our findings suggest a novel channel – social trust – through which national religious characteristics affect corporate disclosure quality.