Depositors Disciplining Banks: the Impact of Scandals 1
WORKING PAPER Depositors Disciplining Banks: The Impact of Scandals 1 Mikael Homanen 2 September 14, 2018 Abstract Do depositors react to negative non-financial information about their banks? By using branch level data for the U.S., I show that banks, that financed the highly controversial Dakota Access Pipeline, ex- perienced significant decreases in deposit growth, especially in branches located closest to the pipeline. These effects were greater for branches located in environmentally or socially conscious counties and data suggests that savings banks were among the main beneficiaries of this depositor movement. Us- ing a global hand-collected dataset on tax evasion, corruption and environmental scandals related to banks, I show that negative deposit growth as a reaction to scandals is a more widespread phenomenon. Keywords: Depositor Discipline, Bank Scandals, Environment, Tax Evasion, Corruption. JEL Classification Codes: G21, G41, M14. 1I would like to thank Thorsten Beck, Renaud Beaupain (discussant), Aymeric Bellon, Peter Brok, Martin Brown, Jules van Binsbergen, Matthieu Chavaz, Anna Cororaton, Anastassia Fedyk (discussant), Erik Gilje, Maria Chiara Ian- nino (discussant), Randall Kroszner (discussant), Elisa Pazaj, S´ebastienPouget (discussant), Antonino Emanuele Rizzo (discussant), Orkun Saka, Luke Taylor, Van Hong Vu (discussant) and Stefan Zeume for their thoughtful discussions, and seminar participants at the Wharton School, ETHOS, MIDAs, Cass Business School, Tilburg University and con- ference participants at the Chicago Booth Stigler Center Political Economy of Finance 2018, PRI Academic Network Conference 2018, Inaugural Conference - Global Research Alliance for Sustainable Finance and Investment, European Financial Management Association 2018 Annual Meeting, 25th Global Finance Conference, 5th Sussex Young Finance Scholars Conference, Cass Research Days, 6th International Symposium on Environment & Energy Finance Issues and the 35th Annual Conference of the French Finance Association for valuable comments and suggestions.
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