Religiosity and cross-country differences in trade credit use

Using the firm-level data over 1989–2012 from 53 countries, we find religiosity in a country is positively associated with trade credit use by local firms. Specifically, after controlling for firm- and country-level factors as well as industry and year effects, we show that trade credit use is higher in more religious countries. Moreover, both creditor rights and social trust in a country enhance the positive association between religiosity and trade credit use, while the quality of national-level disclosure mitigates the aforementioned positive association. These results are robust to alternative measures of religiosity, alternative sampling requirements and potential endogeneity concerns.