National culture and bank liquidity creation

This paper investigates the effects of national culture on bank liquidity creation. Using a sample that covers 66 countries over the 2001–2014 period, we find that individualism is associated with greater bank liquidity creation. This evidence lends more weight to the risk-taking and overconfidence bias explanations. We also find that the effect is stronger for larger banks. Moreover, individualism is associated with more (less) liquidity creation in developed (developing) countries, suggesting that social connections and better access to soft information are relevant explanations in developing countries. Additional analysis suggests that the other cultural dimensions of uncertainty avoidance and power distance are related to lower bank liquidity creation. The results remain robust for a battery of sensitivity checks, and for confronting endogeneity and omitted variables concerns.