The Influence Of Buddhist Atmosphere On The Investment And Financing Behavior Of Chinese Listed Companies

The importance of informal system in economic development has reached a con-sensus in theory.As an informal system arrangement,religion also has a huge impact on the economic,even the behavior of investment in company.Literature shows that reli-gion influence individual risk preference,presented a lower level of risk,investment decisions with considering long-term;In addition,religion influence the faith rules of believers,then to relieve the selfish mentality of believers,so as to alleviate the agency problems.Even if the members in the organization are not all religionist,but the organ-ization in religious environment,his behavior will still be affected by the religious ethics,even individual risk attitude is also affected by other members.This often influ-ences managers' perceived ability,learning ability,cognitive ability,risk preference;then to decide the capacity of collecting information related to the decision-making,collation,analysis and processing;finally affect the firm's financial strategy and deci-sion making.Based on the ideas that religion effect individual risk preference,thereby reducing corporate risk-taking,this dissertation examines the influence of Buddhist atmosphere on the company's financial behavior.After reviewing literatures about the economic consequences of religion and related financial behavior.We first examine the relation-ship between Buddhist atmosphere and corporate risk-taking;then,examine the relationship between Buddhist atmosphere and corporate financial behavior about M&A and capital structure decision,further more we test the path and economic consequences of Buddhist atmosphere between company's financial behaviors under the background of our country.The main contents are as follows:Chapter one is an introduction of the research ideas and analytical framework of the paper.Chapter two is literature review.We begins with reviewing basic theory such as the religious economic consequences,including the impact of religion on economic growth,personal behavior and the behavior of the company,then the definition of Buddhist at-mosphere and measurement,finally reviews corporate financial behavior such as corporate risk-taking,mergers and acquisitions,capital structure.Chapter three describes the institutional background and discusses the influence mechanism.We introduce the current situation of China's religion,then discuss the in-fluence of Buddhism in China,finally analyzes the influence mechanism of Buddhist atmosphere on corporate financial behavior.Chapter four investigates the impact of Buddhist atmosphere to affect corporate risk-taking,and investigated the effects of the role of market process,we also examine the influence of Buddhism in different nature firm.Chapter five explores the impact of Buddhist atmosphere on company's mergers and acquisitions.First investigated Buddhist atmosphere how to affect the target selec-tion,and further test the influence of Buddhist atmosphere on the performance of mergers and acquisitions.Chapter six examines the relationship between Buddhist atmosphere and capital structure.First,we test the influence of Buddhist atmosphere on corporate's leverage,the possibility of above target capital structure,and the capital structure adjustment speed.Finally,test the path of Buddhist atmosphere influence the company's capital structure adjustment.Chapter seven is a summary of the research,including conclusions and prospects.The research conclusions of this dissertation are as follows:First,Buddhist atmosphere reduces the level of corporate risk-taking.We found that firms located where Buddhist atmosphere is stronger,risk-taking is lower,and the marketization process can significantly weaken the influence of Buddhist atmosphere on corporate risk-taking.In addition,the impact of Buddhist atmosphere on risk-taking is different in different nature firm,the nature of SEOs can significantly weaken the in-fluence of Buddhist atmosphere on corporate risk-taking.Second,Buddhist atmosphere can promote diversified mergers and acquisitions,and reduce the probability of allopatric M&A,and improve the performance of M&A.We found that firms located where the Buddhist atmosphere is stronger,it is more likely to choose target which is in different industry or in same region,the market reaction is more positive,and have better long-term performance.We also found there is no differ-ence that the influence of Buddhist atmosphere on the choice of acquisition target industry or region between SOEs and non-SOEs,not the performance,Buddhist atmos-phere can promote non-SOEs' market performance,while the SOEs have no significant effect;In addition,we found that Buddhist atmosphere can promote market performance of diversification mergers,but no significant effect on local or remote.Third,Buddhist atmosphere reduces the firms' capital structure,the probability of above target structure,and can affect the adjustment of capital structure remarkable.We found that firms located where the Buddhist atmosphere is stronger,leverage is lower,and the possibility of capital structure above the target capital structure is lower.Bud-dhist atmosphere also affect the adjustment of capital structure with non-symmetry,if firms are located where the Buddhist atmosphere is stronger,the capital structure ad-justment speed is faster when the capital structure is above the target,and it's more slowly when the capital structure is below the target.We further examine whether the Buddhist atmosphere influences company capital structure is different because of dif-ferent level of financial development.We found that Buddhist atmosphere can reduces the capital structure,the probability of above target structure,and also effect that the adjustment of capital structure in different level of financial development remarkable.And the financial development can significantly enhance the influence of Buddhist at-mosphere on company's capital structure,the probability of above target structure.Moreover,if the influence of Buddhist atmosphere is stronger,listing Corporation tend to adopt to reduce interest bearing liabilities to reduce the leverage,rather than equity financing.The contributions and innovations of this article are as follows:(1)We provided direct empirical evidence that how the religious influence corpo-rate financial behavior,shed some lights on understanding about corporate finance and M&A under the background of our country,and laid a theoretical foundation for the follow-up research,also pointed out the direction;(2)theoretically,extended the re-search of informal institution and corporate finance,deepened the understanding of the religious mechanism for corporate financial behavior,enriched the field of literature between religion and corporate risk-taking,capital structure,or M&A.The limitations of this dissertation lies in:(1)although we controlled the effects of other religions on the company's financial decision,but its religious sites is not covering all in the samples;(2)although this paper provided empirical evidence of Buddhism in fluence the company's risk preference,but we not directly examined the impact between the religion and managers' risk preference or moral level;(3)this paper not address other financial behavior such as dividend,R&D investment and cash holdings,either did not examine the value changes leaded by Buddhism influence capital structure deci-sion and corporate risk-taking.These are to be studied.