宗教信仰、时间偏好与金融素养

Religious Beliefs,Time Preference,and Financial Literacy

宗教信仰影响着个体的价值观念和行为决策,本文立足于宗教的文化属性视角,使用2013年“中国家庭金融调查”数据考察了宗教信仰对个体金融素养的影响。研究发现,宗教信仰对个体金融素养具有显著正影响,而且集中体现于佛教信仰。有宗教信仰者的金融素养比没有宗教信仰者高0.028个单位,相当于样本均值的44%。异质性分析发现,上述效应在高学历个体显著更小,究其原因在于该群体的初始金融素养水平较高。进一步的作用机制检验表明,宗教信仰对个体金融素养的影响渠道为时间偏好,使得个体的行为决策更具“长期取向”。本文发现有助于理解宗教信仰与现代经济生活之间的互动关系,对旨在提高居民金融素养的相关政策和理解“宗教热”现象具有一定启示意义。

Religious beliefs affect individual values and behavioral decisions,this paper investigates how religious beliefs affect individual financial literacy from the perspective of cultural property by using 2013 China Household Finance Survey data.We find a positive impacts of religious beliefs on individual financial literacy,and this effect concentrates in the Buddhism faith.The financial literacy of religious believers is about 0.028 units higher than non-believers,which is equivalent to 44%of the sample average.We examine the heterogeneity effects by individual education level.If the religious believers has a college degree or above,the effects of religious belief on individual financial literacy was less if he/she had a college degree or above,and the reason is that the initial financial literacy of this group is relatively high.Furthermore,the religion makes individual behavioral decisions more“Long Term Orientation”,consistent with the time preference mechanism.Our findings are helpful to understand the interactive relationship between religious beliefs and modern economic life,and are contributive to the increasing of consumers'financial literacy by intervention policies and the interpretation of“the craze for religion”.