Media ownership, concentration and corruption in bank lending

Building on the pioneering study by Beck, Demirguc-Kunt and Levine (2006), we examine the effects of media ownership and concentration on corruption in bank lending. Using the unique World Bank dataset covering more than 5,000 firms across 59 countries, we find strong evidence that that state ownership of media is associated with higher levels of bank corruption. We also find that media concentration increases corruption both directly and indirectly through its interaction with media state ownership. In addition, we find that media state ownership and media concentration both accentuate the positive link between official supervisory power and lending corruption and attenuate the negative link between the regulations that empower private monitoring and corruption in lending. Furthermore, the links between media structure and corruption are more pronounced when the borrowing firm is privately owned.

Corruption in bank lending to firms: Cross-country micro evidence on the beneficial role of competition and information sharing

This paper aims to reassess the effects of culture on corruption in bank lending. These effects were first studied by prior studies which use Hofstede's cultural dimension data. The Hofstede's cultural data are constructed from survey data collected between 1967 and 1973. The data on corruption in bank lending taken from the world business environment survey (WBES), however, were collected between 1999 and 2000. This paper uses cultural data from the global leadership and organisational behaviour effectiveness (GLOBE) project which are constructed from survey data collected in the 1990s instead. The data from the GLOBE project are not only more recent but also provide more cultural dimensions than those of Hofstede. The results indicate that in-group collectivism still increases corruption in bank lending. The results suggest that assertiveness and uncertainty avoidance no longer have a significant effect on corruption in bank lending.

This paper aims to reassess the effects of culture on corruption in bank lending. These effects were first studied by prior studies which use Hofstede's cultural dimension data. The Hofstede's cultural data are constructed from survey data collected between 1967 and 1973. The data on corruption in bank lending taken from the world business environment survey (WBES), however, were collected between 1999 and 2000. This paper uses cultural data from the global leadership and organisational behaviour effectiveness (GLOBE) project which are constructed from survey data collected in the 1990s instead. The data from the GLOBE project are not only more recent but also provide more cultural dimensions than those of Hofstede. The results indicate that in-group collectivism still increases corruption in bank lending. The results suggest that assertiveness and uncertainty avoidance no longer have a significant effect on corruption in bank lending.

This paper explores the effect of country-level religiosity on corruption in bank lending at the firm level. Using data from the World Business Environment Survey, we find strong and robust evidence that firms in more religious countries perceive a higher level of corruption in bank lending than firms in less religious countries. The economic significance of this effect is comparable to that of other well-known determinants of lending corruption. We further find that the banking market structure affects the relation between religiosity and lending corruption. Our findings are robust to alternative measures of religiosity and lending corruption. Finally, we address endogeneity concerns by using natural disaster exposure as an instrument for religiosity. Our study contributes to a more balanced and comprehensive understanding of the role of religion in finance.

Extending the important study by Beck, Demirguc-Kunt and Levine (2007), we examine the effects of borrower and lender competition and information sharing via credit registries/bureaus on corruption in bank lending. Using the unique dataset of the World Business Environment Survey (WBES) compiled by the World Bank, and information on credit registries/bureaus and bank regulation assembled by other scholars, we find (1) strong evidence that banking competition reduces lending corruption and (2) the first and robust evidence that information sharing among banks is conducive in reducing corruption in bank lending. We also find that government- and foreign-owned firms as well as exporting firms tend to be subject to less lending corruption, objective courts and better law enforcement tend to reduce lending corruption, private and foreign ownership of the banking industry are associated with more integrity in lending, and that more private monitoring of banks helps to curtail lending corruption. These findings are consistent with the predictions of a Nash bargaining model.

Building on the recent literature on corruption in bank lending, we examine the effect of country-level timely loan loss recognition by banks on lending corruption using a unique World Bank dataset that covers more than 3,600 firms across 44 countries. We find evidence consistent with timely loan loss recognition constraining lending corruption because it increases the likelihood of problem loans being uncovered earlier. In further analysis, we find timely loan loss recognition to be less associated with reduced corruption in countries where there is significant government ownership in the banking system and deposit insurance schemes. This evidence is consistent with timely loan loss recognition being less of a deterrent to lending corruption when banks are less disciplined by their capital providers.

Corruption in bank lending: The role of timely loan loss recognition

This paper examines how national culture, and collectivism in particular, influences corruption in bank lending. We hypothesize that interdependent self-construal and particularist norms in collectivist countries lead to a higher level of lending corruption through their influence both on the interactions between bank officers and bank customers and on the dynamics among bank colleagues. Using a sample covering 3835 firms across 38 countries, we find strong evidence that firms domiciled in collectivist countries perceive a higher level of lending corruption than firms domiciled in individualist countries. In terms of economic magnitude, the effect of collectivism is substantially larger than the effects of other cultural dimensions (uncertainty avoidance, masculinity, and power distance) and institutional factors identified in prior studies (bank supervision, bank competition, information sharing, and media monitoring). We further find that the positive relationship between collectivism and lending corruption is not driven by endogeneity, and that it is robust to different measures of bank corruption, different measures of collectivism, and different estimation methods. Finally, we find that the link between collectivism and lending corruption cannot be explained by the role of the government in the economy, political connections, biased responses from disgruntled borrowers, or relationship lending.

This paper examines how national culture, and collectivism in particular, influences corruption in bank lending. We hypothesize that interdependent self-construal and particularist norms in collectivist countries lead to a higher level of lending corruption through their influence both on the interactions between bank officers and bank customers and on the dynamics among bank colleagues. Using a sample covering 3835 firms across 38 countries, we find strong evidence that firms domiciled in collectivist countries perceive a higher level of lending corruption than firms domiciled in individualist countries. In terms of economic magnitude, the effect of collectivism is substantially larger than the effects of other cultural dimensions (uncertainty avoidance, masculinity, and power distance) and institutional factors identified in prior studies (bank supervision, bank competition, information sharing, and media monitoring). We further find that the positive relationship between collectivism and lending corruption is not driven by endogeneity, and that it is robust to different measures of bank corruption, different measures of collectivism, and different estimation methods. Finally, we find that the link between collectivism and lending corruption cannot be explained by the role of the government in the economy, political connections, biased responses from disgruntled borrowers, or relationship lending.

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.

State ownership, macroprudential policies, and bank lending

In this paper we examine the link between state ownership and the choice of public debt versus bank debt in an international context. Using a large sample of privatized firms from 62 countries over the 2001-2014 period, we find that state ownership is significantly positively associated with the use of bank debt financing, suggesting that privatized firms benefit from the soft budget constraint associated with state ownership. This result holds after conducting several endogeneity and robustness tests. We further find that the positive relation between state ownership and bank debt reliance is more pronounced in countries with high government ownership of banks, high corruption in bank lending, a left-oriented government, and a collectivist national culture, which provides additional support for the soft budget constraint view. Finally, in external validity tests we find that state ownership affects other aspects of debt structure such as debt maturity and debt security.

Using a large sample of privatized firms, we find that state ownership is significantly positively associated with the use of bank debt financing, suggesting that privatized firms benefit from the soft budget constraint associated with state ownership. We further find that the relation is more pronounced in countries with high government ownership of banks, high corruption in bank lending, a left-oriented government, and a collectivist national culture, which provides additional support for the soft-budget-constraint view. Finally, in external validity tests, we find that state ownership affects other aspects of debt structure, such as debt maturity and debt security.

The aim of this paper is to analyze the effect of corruption in bank lending. Corruption is expected to hamper bank lending, as it is closely related to legal enforcement, which has been shown to promote banks’ willingness to lend. Nevertheless the similarities between the consequences for bank lending of law enforcement and corruption are misleading, as they consider only judiciary corruption. Corruption can also occur in lending and may then be beneficial for bank lending via bribes given by borrowers to enhance their chances of receiving loans. This assumption may be validated particularly in the presence of pronounced risk aversion by banks, resulting in greater reluctance on the part of banks to grant loans. We perform country-level and bank-level estimations to investigate these assumptions. Corruption reduces bank lending in both sets of estimations. However, bank-level estimations show that the detrimental effect of corruption is reduced when bank risk aver-sion increases, even leading at times to situations wherein corruption fosters bank lending. Additional controls show that corruption does not increase bank credit by favoring only bad loans. Therefore, our findings show that while the overall effect of corruption is to hamper bank lending, it can alleviate firm’s financing obstacles.