How Do Climate Concerns and Value Orientation Among Bankers Influence Agricultural Financing and Development?

Agricultural financing is crucial for economic development and sustainability. However, little is known about how bankers’ concerns about climate change influence their decision-making for agricultural financing and development and how these concerns are related to possible future performance. This study investigates a research question “how do bankers’ climate concerns and value orientation influence agricultural financing and development?” and the hypotheses “bankers’ climate concerns are negatively related to agricultural financing and development, whereas their value orientation for future generations is positively associated with these endeavors”. We conduct questionnaire surveys and collect data on climate concerns, prosocial attitude for future generations and sociodemographic & bank related information from 596 bankers at three areas in Bangladesh. The results reveal three main findings. First, bankers who have high levels of climate concerns tend to be less optimistic about agricultural financing and development. Second, bankers who live in high climate-change areas tend to have more severe climate concerns and darker prospectives in agricultural financing and development than those in low climate-change areas. Third, bankers who have a high value orientation for future generations are likely to be positive about future agricultural financing and development. Overall, our findings suggest that future agricultural financing and development shall be discouraged as climate change becomes severe, hitting low-land areas, such as Bangladesh, through the lens of bankers’ perceptions, unless the bankers possess high concerns for future generations. To counter such negative possibilities, a new agricultural financing scheme, such as “agricultural green banking”, shall be necessary to implement.