The relationship between religiosity and voluntary disclosure quality: a cross-country evidence from the banking sector

Rami Salem (), Ernest Ezeani () and Xi Song ()
Additional contact information
Rami Salem: University of Central Lancashire, University of Gharyan
Ernest Ezeani: Manchester Metropolitan University
Xi Song: University of Central Lancashire

Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, 2023, vol. 60, issue 3, No 5, 983-1023

Abstract: Abstract This study examines whether there is a relationship between religiosity and voluntary disclosure quality (VD_Q). We utilise a three-dimensional approach to capture the VD_Q on an international sample of 1,484 bank-year observations in 12 countries of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region over 14 years period from 2006 to 2019. Our findings indicate that religiosity is positively associated with banks' VD_Q. Our findings also show that the association between religiosity and VD_Q is more noticeable in banks operating in countries with a low level of legal protection, low level of control of corruption and during the crisis period. We further illustrate that the influence of religiosity is more intense on the spread and usefulness of information dimensions than the quantity dimension. These empirical findings are robust to alternative proxies of religiosity and sample specification. This result supports the notion that religiosity enhances corporate disclosure quality and reduces the asymmetric information gap between managers and outside users of information.

Keywords: Voluntary disclosure quality; Religiosity; Informal institutions; Legal protection and control of corruption (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11156-022-01117-0 Abstract (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:kap:rqfnac:v:60:y:2023:i:3:d:10.1007_s11156-022-01117-0

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/finance/journal/11156/PS2

DOI: 10.1007/s11156-022-01117-0

Access Statistics for this article

Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting is currently edited by Cheng-Few Lee

More articles in Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().