IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/riibaf/v71y2024ics0275531924002332.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Exploring the impact of religious diversity on market performance and financial growth in developed economies

Author

Listed:
  • Sun, Weikang
  • Wei, Zhiqi
  • Zou, Shixiang

Abstract

This paper investigates the relationship between religious diversity and financial market efficiency through an empirical analysis spanning multiple (50) countries and time periods. Utilizing a comprehensive dataset compiled from various sources, including religious demographics and financial market indicators, we employ advanced econometric techniques to examine the impact of religious diversity on market efficiency. Our findings suggest a nuanced relationship between religious diversity and financial market dynamics, with significant implications for investors, policymakers, and societal stakeholders. The analysis reveals that regions characterized by higher religious diversity tend to exhibit lower levels of market efficiency, as measured by volatility, liquidity, and price informativeness. Furthermore, our results indicate that religious diversity and market efficiency vary across religious denominations and geographical regions. Our research's implications extend beyond finance, offering insights into the broader societal implications of religious diversity and its impact on economic outcomes.

Suggested Citation

  • Sun, Weikang & Wei, Zhiqi & Zou, Shixiang, 2024. "Exploring the impact of religious diversity on market performance and financial growth in developed economies," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:riibaf:v:71:y:2024:i:c:s0275531924002332
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ribaf.2024.102440
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0275531924002332
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.ribaf.2024.102440?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ahmad, Muhammad Munir & Hunjra, Ahmed Imran & Taskin, Dilvin, 2023. "Do asymmetric information and leverage affect investment decisions?," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 337-345.
    2. Pandey, Dharen Kumar & Hunjra, Ahmed Imran & Hassan, M. Kabir & Rai, Varun Kumar, 2023. "Venture capital financing during crises: A bibliometric review," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    3. Zhang, Han & Zheng, Jinhui & Hunjra, Ahmed Imran & Zhao, Shikuan & Bouri, Elie, 2024. "How does urban land use efficiency improve resource and environment carrying capacity?," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 91(C).
    4. Azam, Muhammad & Hunjra, Ahmed Imran & Taskin, Dilvin & Al-Faryan, Mamdouh Abdulaziz Saleh, 2023. "Role of ethnic conflicts, regularization and natural resource abundance in sustainable development," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 85(PB).
    5. Hunjra, Ahmed Imran & Azam, Muhammad & Bruna, Maria Giuseppina & Bouri, Elie, 2023. "A cross-regional investigation of institutional quality and sustainable development," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    6. Hunjra, Ahmed Imran & Jebabli, Ikram & Thrikawala, Sujani Sudhara & Alawi, Suha Mahmoud & Mehmood, Rashid, 2024. "How do corporate governance and corporate social responsibility affect credit risk?," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 67(PA).
    7. Hunjra, Ahmed Imran & Azam, Muhammad & Bruna, Maria Giuseppina & Taskin, Dilvin, 2022. "Role of financial development for sustainable economic development in low middle income countries," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 47(PB).
    8. Hunjra, Ahmed Imran & Boubaker, Sabri & Arunachalam, Murugesh & Mehmood, Asad, 2021. "How does CSR mediate the relationship between culture, religiosity and firm performance?," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 39(C).
    9. Aslam, Faheem & Hunjra, Ahmed Imran & Ftiti, Zied & Louhichi, Wael & Shams, Tahira, 2022. "Insurance fraud detection: Evidence from artificial intelligence and machine learning," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).
    10. Hunjra, Ahmed Imran & Azam, Muhammad & Bruna, Maria Giuseppina & Verhoeven, Peter & Al-Faryan, Mamdouh Abdulaziz Saleh, 2022. "Sustainable development: The impact of political risk, macroeconomic policy uncertainty and ethnic conflict," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    11. Zhao, Shikuan & Cao, Yuequn & Hunjra, Ahmed Imran & Tan, Yan, 2023. "How does environmentally induced R&D affect carbon productivity? A government support perspective," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 942-961.
    12. Ampofo, Akwasi & Mabefam, Matthew Gmalifo, 2021. "Religiosity and Energy Poverty: Empirical evidence across countries," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 102(C).
    13. Pandey, Dharen Kumar & Hunjra, Ahmed Imran & Bhaskar, Ratikant & Al-Faryan, Mamdouh Abdulaziz Saleh, 2023. "Artificial intelligence, machine learning and big data in natural resources management: A comprehensive bibliometric review of literature spanning 1975–2022," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 86(PA).
    14. Hunjra, Ahmed Imran & Hassan, M. Kabir & Zaied, Younes Ben & Managi, Shunsuke, 2023. "Nexus between green finance, environmental degradation, and sustainable development: Evidence from developing countries," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    15. Duppati, Geeta & Younes, Ben Zaied & Tiwari, Aviral Kumar & Hunjra, Ahmed Imran, 2023. "Time-varying effects of fuel prices on stock market returns during COVID-19 outbreak," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    16. Hunjra, Ahmed Imran & Kijkasiwat, Ploypailin & Arunachalam, Murugesh & Hammami, Helmi, 2021. "Covid-19 health policy intervention and volatility of Asian capital markets," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 169(C).
    17. Bhaskar, Ratikant & Hunjra, Ahmed Imran & Bansal, Shashank & Pandey, Dharen Kumar, 2022. "Central Bank Digital Currencies: Agendas for future research," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).
    18. Yousaf, Imran & Hunjra, Ahmed Imran & Alshater, Muneer M. & Bouri, Elie & Li, Yanshuang, 2023. "Multidimensional connectedness among the volatility of global financial markets around the Russian-Ukrainian conflict," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    19. Chen, Yangyang & Murgulov, Zoltan & Rhee, S. Ghon & Veeraraghavan, Madhu, 2016. "Religious beliefs and local government financing, investment, and cash holding decisions," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 38(PA), pages 258-271.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Ettalibi, Nouhaila & Arunachalam, Murugesh & Nguyen, Thao & Rehman, Kashif ur, 2025. "The influence of institutional void and socio-cultural factors on the internationalization of emerging multinationals," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 73(PA).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Sun, Xialing & Meng, Zheng & Zhang, Xuchao & Wu, Jiaxi, 2025. "The role of institutional quality in the nexus between green financing and sustainable development," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 73(PA).
    2. Liu, Guohua & Zhao, Lihua & Wang, Xiaoyan & liao, Meihui, 2024. "Impact of social welfare finance on institutional financial performance: Cross-country evidence," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 70(PB).
    3. Huang, Siqi & Cheng, Manli & Shu, Zhenzhu, 2024. "Role of social capital and financial inclusion in sustainable economic growth," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 72(PA).
    4. Shi, Ruoying & Zhou, Hengyi & Li, Xiangqian & Miao, Xue'er & Zhao, Xing, 2024. "Green finance, investor preferences, and corporate green innovation," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    5. Naseer, Mirza Muhammad & Hunjra, Ahmed Imran & Palma, Alessia & Bagh, Tanveer, 2025. "Sustainable development goals and environmental performance: Exploring the contribution of governance, energy, and growth," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 73(PB).
    6. Simionescu, Mihaela & Radulescu, Magdalena & Cifuentes-Faura, Javier, 2024. "The role of natural resources rents and e-government in achieving sustainable development in the European Union," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 97(C).
    7. Rai, Varun Kumar & Bruna, Maria Giuseppina & Hunjra, Ahmed Imran & Pandey, Dharen Kumar & Lal, Madan, 2024. "COVID-19 literature in Elsevier finance journal ecosystem," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 243(C).
    8. Gaies, Brahim, 2024. "In search of lost social finance: How do financial instability and inequality interact?," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 72(PA).
    9. Pandey, Dharen Kumar & Hassan, M.Kabir & Kumari, Vineeta & Zaied, Younes Ben & Rai, Varun Kumar, 2024. "Mapping the landscape of FinTech in banking and finance: A bibliometric review," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 67(PA).
    10. Ye, Xiaoyu & Tian, Xiangyu, 2025. "Green finance and ESG performance: A quasi-natural experiment on the influence of green financing pilot zones," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 73(PB).
    11. Ettalibi, Nouhaila & Arunachalam, Murugesh & Nguyen, Thao & Rehman, Kashif ur, 2025. "The influence of institutional void and socio-cultural factors on the internationalization of emerging multinationals," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 73(PA).
    12. Pandey, Dharen Kumar & Lucey, Brian M. & Kumar, Satish, 2023. "Border disputes, conflicts, war, and financial markets research: A systematic review," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).
    13. Akbar, Syed Waqar & Rehman, Ajid Ur & Bouri, Elie & Ijaz, Muhammad Shahzad & Arshad, Imran, 2024. "Socio-economic issues and bank stability: The moderating role of competition," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
    14. Saeed, Abubakr & Baloch, Muhammad Saad & Liedong, Tahiru Azaaviele & Rajwani, Tazeeb, 2024. "Board gender diversity, nonmarket strategy and firm performance: Evidence from emerging markets MNCs," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
    15. Abedin, Mohammad Zoynul & Hajek, Petr & Sharif, Taimur & Satu, Md. Shahriare & Khan, Md. Imran, 2023. "Modelling bank customer behaviour using feature engineering and classification techniques," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).
    16. Luo, Rui & Chen, Ping & Wang, Yachao, 2024. "Green investment products, consumer behavior, and regional carbon emissions levels," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    17. Dai, Xue Dong & Niu, Lisi, 2024. "The impact of judicial prejudice in bankruptcy on creditors and local financial development," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 67(PA).
    18. Wang, Yi-Ran & Ma, Chao-Qun & Ren, Yi-Shuai, 2022. "A model for CBDC audits based on blockchain technology: Learning from the DCEP," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    19. Ma, Cong & Cheok, Mui Yee & Chok, Nyen Vui, 2023. "Economic recovery through multisector management resources in small and medium businesses in China," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    20. Zhang, Yingying & Wang, Xinpeng & Feng, Nianqiao, 2024. "The path of green finance to promote the realization of low-carbon economic transformation under the carbon peaking and carbon neutrality goals: Theoretical model and empirical analysis," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 94(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:riibaf:v:71:y:2024:i:c:s0275531924002332. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/ribaf .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.