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Some Don't Like It Hot: Bank Depositors and NGO Campaigns Against Brown Banks

Author

Listed:
  • Clément Mazet-Sonilhac

    (Bocconi University [Milan, Italy])

  • Jean-Stéphane Mésonnier

    (ECON - Département d'économie (Sciences Po) - Sciences Po - Sciences Po - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Centre de recherche de la Banque de France - Banque de France)

Abstract

We exploit new data on NGO campaigns that target banks financing fossil fuels ("brown" banks) to build a measure of French banks' environmental reputation, which we merge with granular data on bank deposits and loans of households in France over 2010-2020. We find that banks publicly blamed for funding climatedamaging projects face a lower supply of deposits. Depositors mostly react to their bank's brown reputation after the implementation of a new regulation that cuts down the transaction costs of changing banks. Last, using a large database of new mortgage loans, we show that brown banks also face a relatively lower demand for housing loans, implying lower mortgage loan rates offered to their customers.

Suggested Citation

  • Clément Mazet-Sonilhac & Jean-Stéphane Mésonnier, 2024. "Some Don't Like It Hot: Bank Depositors and NGO Campaigns Against Brown Banks," SciencePo Working papers Main hal-04350378, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:spmain:hal-04350378
    Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://sciencespo.hal.science/hal-04350378v2
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Climate change; Households finance; Fossil banks; Green preferences;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G21 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Banks; Other Depository Institutions; Micro Finance Institutions; Mortgages
    • G51 - Financial Economics - - Household Finance - - - Household Savings, Borrowing, Debt, and Wealth
    • Q54 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Climate; Natural Disasters and their Management; Global Warming

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