Some Don't Like It Hot: Bank Depositors and NGO Campaigns Against Fossil Fuels

Clément Mazet-Sonilhac (1) , Jean-Stéphane Mésonnier (2, 3)

1 Bocconi University [Milan, Italy]
2 ECON - Département d'économie (Sciences Po)
3 Centre de recherche de la Banque de France

We exploit new data on NGO campaigns that target banks financing fossil fuels to build a measure of banks' environmental reputation. Using rich data on bank deposits and loans with households in France, we find that banks perceived as browner face a lower supply of sight deposits and a lower demand for housing loans. Other dimensions of the ES responsibility of banks seem to matter less. The effect of bank's brown reputation is stronger in counties where average education, income and political support for green parties are higher. It also mostly takes place after a regulatory change that makes it easier for individuals to switch banks. Last, we exploit data on new housing loans to show that banks perceived as greener can charge relatively higher interest rates to their customers.

Keywords: Climate change; Households finance; Fossil banks; Green preferences

Domains: Economics and Finance

Clément Mazet-Sonilhac, Jean-Stéphane Mésonnier. Some Don't Like It Hot: Bank Depositors and NGO Campaigns Against Fossil Fuels. 2023. ⟨hal-04350378⟩