<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><p>This research comes to empirical investigate whether the country‟s levels of corruption may be explained by some behavioral factors such as culture, tax morale, trust, religion or happiness. For this purpose, a cross-countries survey of 148 countries is used. The findings document that power distance, trust in legal system, happiness and religion are the most important behavioral determinants of the corruption, explaining about 50 % from the level of corruption around the world. A higher power distance, a lower level of trust in legal system, a lower level of happiness (measured by subjective well-being) and a higher level of religiosity conduct to a higher level of corruption. The findings are important for the policy-makers in order to include the non-economic factors in the analysis of corruption behavior of the people belong to a country, and thus to adopt the most appropriate decisions to fight against this phenomenon.</p></abstract>

This research comes to empirical investigate whether the country‟s levels of corruption may be explained by some behavioral factors such as culture, tax morale, trust, religion or happiness. For this purpose, a cross-countries survey of 148 countries is used. The findings document that power distance, trust in legal system, happiness and religion are the most important behavioral determinants of the corruption, explaining about 50 % from the level of corruption around the world. A higher power distance, a lower level of trust in legal system, a lower level of happiness (measured by subjective well-being) and a higher level of religiosity conduct to a higher level of corruption. The findings are important for the policy-makers in order to include the non-economic factors in the analysis of corruption behavior of the people belong to a country, and thus to adopt the most appropriate decisions to fight against this phenomenon.

Behavioral Determinants of Corruption. A Cross-Country Survey

„Vasile Goldiș” Western University of Arad

Studia Universitatis „Vasile Goldis” Arad – Economics Series

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

{"article-title":"Behavioral Determinants of Corruption. A Cross-Country Survey"}

This research comes to empirical investigate whether the country‟s levels of corruption may be explained by some behavioral factors such as culture, tax...

Behavioral Determinants of Corruption. A Cross-Country Survey

Published Online: Apr 07, 2019

Page range: 21 - 39

Received: Nov 01, 2018

Accepted: Feb 01, 2019

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/sues-2019-0002

Keywords
corruption, culture, tax morale, trust, religion, happiness

© 2019 Sorin Nicolae Borlea et al., published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Behavioral Determinants of Corruption. A Cross-Country Survey

Published Online: Apr 07, 2019

Page range: 21 - 39

Received: Nov 01, 2018

Accepted: Feb 01, 2019

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/sues-2019-0002

Keywordscorruption, culture, tax morale, trust, religion, happiness

© 2019 Sorin Nicolae Borlea et al., published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Keywords
corruption, culture, tax morale, trust, religion, happiness