Religion, Corruption, and the Rule of Law

North, Charles M.; Orman, Wafa Hakim; Gwin, Carl R.

doi:10.2139/ssrn.2205971

Cited by 20 publications

(33 citation statements)

References 15 publications

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“…And religion can impact on economic development because it preaches the value of work ethic and thrift (Weber 1930;Landes 1999) perhaps because it is underpinned by the idea that to do otherwise may win you eternal condemnation (Barro and McCleary 2003). To account for religion I employ data on religious affiliations in 1900 in an effort to avoid the masking effect of massive twentieth century conversions to monotheism in Africa (North et al 2013). …”

Section: Data and Empirical Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Individualism–collectivism, governance and economic development

Kyriacou

2016

European Journal of Political Economy

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While an individualist society prizes personal control, autonomy and individual accomplishments, a collectivist society puts a premium on loyalty and cohesion and imposes mutual obligations in the context of in-groups. It has been argued that individualism will promote economic development directly by sharpening individual incentives to invest, innovate and accumulate wealth. In this article, I argue that the individualist-collectivist dimension can also affect development through its impact on governance. The in-group favoritism inherent to collectivist societies is likely to engender corruption, nepotism and clientelism in the public sphere. In individualist societies, the relative weakness of in-group pressures and an emphasis on personal achievement and worth will contribute towards a more meritocratic and efficient public sector. My empirical evidence confirms the strong positive relationship between individualism and government quality. Moreover, I provide robust empirical evidence showing that the expected direct positive impact of individualism on economic development disappears when additionally controlling for governance, a finding which suggests that insofar as individualism affects development it does so because it promotes good governance.

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Section: Data and Empirical Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Individualism–collectivism, governance and economic development

Kyriacou

2016

European Journal of Political Economy

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“…Several authors have related Protestantism with less corruption and Catholicsm, Islam and the Eastern Orthodox tradition with more corruption perhaps because the latter three are more hierarchical and, as such, inculcate values which make people less likely to challenge public office holders (La Porta et al 1999;Treisman 2000;North et al 2013). Moreover, Guiso et al (2003) report systematic differences between individuals from different religions across a range of economic attitudes on issues like tax evasion, public versus private ownership, the importance of luck and chance versus hard work for success, the importance of thrift and whether competition is good or harmful.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The significant change in the sample size acts as a further robustness check. Moreover, because our decentralization and legal origin indicators are constant over time, adopting this approach goes some way to account for the possibility that our panel results are being driven by repeated 6 The measures of religion refer to the percentage of the population that can identified as belonging to a specific religion and come from North et al (2013). entries. Five year values also allow us to deal to some extent with the impact of reverse causality on all of our time variant explanatory variables.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…There are five dummies: (1) English common law; (2) French commercial code; (3) German commercial code; (4) Scandinavian commercial code; (5) socialist communist laws (La Porta et al 1999). Religion Largest religions (Catholic, Protestants, Muslim and Eastern Orthodox) as a percentage of population in 2000 (North et al 2013). …”

Section: Political Decentralizationmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Construction corrupts: empirical evidence from a panel of 42 countries

2015

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The construction sector, whether privately or publically financed, is characterized by potentially large rents and government intervention. Not surprisingly then, both casestudy and survey evidence has been provided highlighting the problem of corruption in this sector. In this article, we test the proposition that a bigger construction sector is likely to be inimical to clean government based on a panel of 42 countries over the period 1995 to 2011. We control for a range of potentially counfounding variables and the expectation that corrupt public officials may favor the development of this sector because it increases the volume of rents available to them. Our empirical evidence shows that a larger construction sector will tend to worsen perceptions of the extent to which public power is exercised for private gain. JEL Classification: D73, L74

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“…First, religious freedom reduces corruption (North et al, 2013). Economists have long recognized that monopolies are more likely to engage in unproductive and often illegal activities, resulting in economic losses.…”

Section: Religious Freedommentioning

confidence: 99%

The Impact of the Reformation on the Economic Development of Western Europe

Sheremeta

Smith

2017

SSRN Journal

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The Protestant Reformation is a vivid example of how religious transformation could set in motion institutional changes, leading to profound consequences for economic and political development. Although economists and other social scientists agree that there is a strong relation between the Reformation and economic growth, there is an active discussion as to what are the causal pathways connecting Protestantism to long-run economic success. We discuss the causal pathways that received substantial empirical support in academic literature. Some of them, such as "work ethic" and entrepreneurial spirit of Protestants, were originally suggested by Max Weber, while others, such as religious freedom and education, are deeply grounded in economic theory. More recently, other causal pathways have been suggested, such as social ethic, civil society, and institutional changes. We bring our view of these pathways.

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Religion, Corruption, and the Rule of Law

Cited by 20 publications

References 15 publications

Individualism–collectivism, governance and economic development

Individualism–collectivism, governance and economic development

Construction corrupts: empirical evidence from a panel of 42 countries

The Impact of the Reformation on the Economic Development of Western Europe

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