Bangor Business School Research Seminar: Does religiosity affect climate change?Â
Abstract: Does religiosity play a role in the shift to a lower carbon economy? We hypothesize that individuals exposed to religious education and messages are more likely to show respect for the environment and to adopt behaviours that contribute to its protection Here, to test our hypothesis we investigate the relationship between church attendance in Italian communes and the carbon emissions of more than 11K local small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) over the period 2011-2022. Controlling for firm-level balance sheet and governance characteristics, such as geographic and religious origins, we find that greater church attendance at the commune level is associated with lower levels of carbon emissions by local SMEs. We find that this relationship is amplified when the Pope actively promotes environmental responsibility through his speeches indicating the leadership role played by Pope in guiding religious communities towards environmental values. We also document that the relationship is stronger for firms led by female entrepreneurs, consistent with evidence on gender-driven environmental responsibility. Finally, we find that the relationship between church attendance and SMEs’ pollution is not statistically significant when the entrepreneur is not part of the local commune, but the effect remains significant for foreign entrepreneurs, particularly those from Catholic countries, supporting the notion that Catholic teachings promote pro-environmental behavior among followers.
Short bio: Yener AltunbaÅŸ is a Professor in Banking at Bangor Business School. He holds a BSc (Economics) degree from the University of Hacettepe, Ankara and a PhD from the Unversity of Wales, Bangor. He held a Visiting Consultant post at the European Central Bank (ECB), Bank for International Settlements (BIS) and he is recently appointed as a visiting professor at the University of Calabria. Professor AltunbaÅŸ is currently a consultant for ECB, BIS and he is collaborating on research projects with other colleagues at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and Central Bank of Turkey. Author of many articles on the structure and efficiency of banking markets, his main fields of research interest include: the study of European banks, efficiency, stock market analysis, corporate governance, electoral studies, regional economics and climate change. Recent research has also been concerned with marine biology.
Meeting ID: 381 111 448 395 7
Passcode: Qe6Bt3KR