Does religion affect capital structure?

• We study capital structures of firms in Catholic- and Protestant-majority areas.
• Firms located in Catholic-majority counties in the U.S. have more leverage.
• Firms located in Protestant-majority counties issue less debt and more equity.
• There are differences in capital structure adjustment speeds based on religiosity.
• Difference in leverage among U.S. firms is similar to international firms.

We hypothesize that if the cultural characteristics of a region are important, then firms located in Protestant- and Catholic-majority counties within the U.S. will have different attitude toward leverage. We find that a 1% increase in a county's Protestant religiosity leads to a 0.4% lower leverage and less frequent debt issuances. This religiosity also has significant effect on the firms’ adjustment speeds toward the target capital structure. Using a sample of international firms, we find that these differences in leverage in the U.S. are similar to the behavior of firms in Catholic and Protestant countries outside of the U.S.