Religion, places of worship, and individual risk-taking in China

Abstract

The influence of religious beliefs on investment is interesting and essential in the literature. We use a large dataset with detailed information on the worship places of China's five most prominent religious groups to study the relationship between local religious beliefs and individual financial decisions. We find that residents located in the places of Buddhism, Islam, and Catholic are less likely to buy financial products in the financial market. Meanwhile, residents located in the place of Taoism are riskneutral. Moreover, residents located in the place of Protestantism tend to take more risks than residents in other places of worship. As a result, this paper deepens our understanding of how cultural factors influence individual financial decisions.