We examine the extent to which national culture influences the severity of financial misconduct by banks globally. Using cultural background information of the country where a bank is headquartered, we detail strong evidence that individual over-confidence increases bank misconduct while uncertainty avoidance reduces it. The findings hold with alternative national culture and loss measures, using instrumental variable two-stage least squares, excluding Anglo-Saxon countries, for US sanctions only and, for individual over-confidence, across states within the US. Regulatory capital stringency and supervisory independence can help to counter the influence of individual over-confidence on such losses. The findings outlined are relevant to regulators, policymakers, and banking practitioners seeking to mitigate malfeasance in financial institutions.

我们研究了民族文化对全球银行金融不当行为严重程度的影响程度。利用银行总部所在国家的文化背景信息，我们详细说明了个人过度自信会增加银行不当行为，而规避不确定性会减少这种不当行为。研究结果适用于其他国家文化和损失衡量标准，使用工具变量两阶段最小二乘法（不包括盎格鲁撒克逊国家），仅针对美国制裁，以及美国境内各州的个人过度自信。监管资本的严格性和监管的独立性有助于抵消个人过度自信对此类损失的影响。概述的调查结果与寻求减少金融机构不当行为的监管机构、政策制定者和银行从业人员相关。