Arbeitspapier

Are ethical and social banks less risky? Evidence from a new dataset

This paper introduces a new and comprehensive dataset on “alternative” banks in EU and OECD countries. Alternative banks (e.g. ethical, social or sustainable banking) experienced a recent increase in media interest and have been hailed as an answer to the financial crisis but no research exists on their stability. This paper studies whether alternative banks differ from conventional banks in terms of riskiness. For this I construct a comprehensive dataset of alternative banks and compare their riskiness with an adequately matched control group of conventional banks using mean comparison and panel regression techniques. The main result is that alternative banks are significantly more stable (in terms of z-score) than their conventional counterparts. The results are robust to different estimation methods and data specifications. Alternative banks also have lower loan to asset ratios and higher customer deposit ratios than conventional banks.

Language
Englisch

Bibliographic citation
Series: WWWforEurope Working Paper ; No. 96

Classification
Wirtschaft
Banks; Depository Institutions; Micro Finance Institutions; Mortgages
Financing Policy; Financial Risk and Risk Management; Capital and Ownership Structure; Value of Firms; Goodwill
Financial Markets and the Macroeconomy
Corporate Culture; Diversity; Social Responsibility
Subject
Ethical banking
social banking
bank risk
financial crisis

Event
Geistige Schöpfung
(who)
Karl, Marlene
Event
Veröffentlichung
(who)
WWWforEurope
(where)
Vienna
(when)
2015

Handle
Last update
10.03.2025, 11:44 AM CET

Data provider

This object is provided by:
ZBW - Deutsche Zentralbibliothek für Wirtschaftswissenschaften - Leibniz-Informationszentrum Wirtschaft. If you have any questions about the object, please contact the data provider.

Object type

  • Arbeitspapier

Associated

  • Karl, Marlene
  • WWWforEurope

Time of origin

  • 2015

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