Religiosity and corruption in bank lending

Geng Niu, Yang Zhou , Weijie Lu and Hongwu Gan

Abstract: This paper explores the effect of country-level religiosity on corruption in bank lending. By using the World Business Environment Survey, we find that firms in more religious countries perceive a higher level of bank lending corruption. Furthermore, larger (smaller) foreign (government) ownership and more competition in a country's banking system attenuate the adverse effect of religiosity. The effect of religiosity carries over to bank loan performance. Our findings are confirmed by various robustness checks. This study contributes to a more balanced and comprehensive understanding of the role of religion in business ethics.

This article will be published online in the Journal of Business Finance & Accounting in February 2022, which is a B+ journal of the School of Economics and Management, and Lu Weijie is the corresponding author of this article.

This paper was officially published in The Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control (Vol. 134) in January 2022. The Journal is A class A Journal of school of Economics and Management, Wuhan University.

Paper link address: https://doi.org/10.1111/jbfa.12594