Replication Data for: Banking Bad? A Global Field Experiment on Risk, Reward, and Regulation

Are banks sensitive to risk and reward in following global corporate transparency rules? Using a worldwide field experiment, this study evaluates competing predictions from expected utility, behavioralist, and institutionalist accounts. We incorporated a dozen companies around the world to make over 15,000 email solicitations asking for corporate accounts from 5,000 of the world’s internationally connected banks. Treatments randomize the risk profiles of different companies – by their countries’ association with corruption, terrorism, and tax evasion – and vary rewards by stating differing amounts of business revenues. The outcomes are the rates at which banks offer accounts and comply with rules on customer identification. The results suggest that banks are moderately responsive to risk – though not reward – but the magnitude of the effects is small, providing mixed evidence for conventional models and suggestive support for institutionalist accounts.

银行在遵循全球企业透明度规则时，是否对风险与回报具有敏感性？本研究通过一项全球实地实验，评估了期望效用理论、行为主义理论与制度主义理论的竞争性预测。我们联合了全球范围内的12家公司，向全球5000家具有国际联系的银行发送了超过15000封电子邮件，请求开设企业账户。实验处理通过公司所在国家与腐败、恐怖主义及逃税的关联程度，对不同公司的风险特征进行随机化，并通过设定不同的业务收入金额来改变回报水平。实验结果为银行提供账户的比率以及遵守客户身份识别规则的比率。研究结果表明，银行对风险具有适度的响应性——但对回报无响应——不过效应规模较小，这为传统模型提供了混合证据，并为制度主义理论提供了暗示性支持。