Religion and long-term investment:A comprehensive approach of the relationship between religion and present-bias and the influence on saving/borrowing

Masters Thesis from the year 2014 in the subject Business economics - Investment and Finance, grade: 1,0, Maastricht University, course: Human Decision Science - behavioral finance, language: English, abstract: By running a survey about the religiousness of students in Germany and Turkey, the impact on the present-bias parameter is analysed. Highly religious people suffer less present-bias problems than non-highly religious people do. For the independent variables age, gender, denomination, faculty department, and education, no significance was found. Increasing the consciousness of religion in participants mind showed a positive impact on present-bias, at least for Turkey. Using this parameter, which is achieved by surveys, saving/borrowing behaviour of a specific target group can be detected and directly addressed in order to stimulate national savings.