Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis Vol. 53 No. 5 2018
Earthly Reward to the Religious: Religiosity and the Costs of Public and Private Debt
Abstract
We document that a firm’s culture, specifically, its religiosity, affects its cost of debt. Firms in higher-religiosity counties have higher credit ratings and lower debt costs. The impact of religiosity is stronger for firms with greater information asymmetry and during recessions. Further, religiosity has additional explanatory power for the cost of bank loans (but not the cost of public bonds) beyond its impact through ratings. This supports the argument that banks have superior abilities in pricing soft information, such as corporate culture. Finally, the impact of religiosity is stronger when the lender is a small bank.
- DOI
- 10.1017/s002210901800039x
- Volume
- 53
- Issue
- 5
- Pages
- 2131-2160
- Language
- en
- Sources
- bibtex:phds-export.bib openalex crossref