Economic Research and Perspectives

Economic Research and Perspectives

The Key to Solve the Corruption problem: Gender, Government, Religionsand Their Impact on Each Other

Authors
Naime Hamidi 1
Karim Azarbayejani 2
Morteza Sameti 2
1 Ph.D. student of Economics, Islamic Azad University Isfahan (Khorasgan) Branch, Isfahan, Iran
2 Professor, Department of Economics, Faculty of Administrative Sciences and Economics, University of Isfahan, Iran.
Abstract
Aim and Introduction

In recent years, economists have come to recognize that corruption is not just a deviation or a hurt; it is a systemic feature of many economies, which constitutes a significant impediment to economic growth and development. The present article tries to answer this question: does corruption more depended on gender or institutional factors? Today with the spread of corruption, its negative effects have overshadowed many economic, social and political aspects and have led to reduced efficiency. The international community considers corruption as an economic and social complication and many thinkers in economic, social, political and psychological sciences are studying its causes and consequences. Studies have expanded to such an extent that in the study of (Dollar et al., 2001), women are considered as myth of transparency for reasons such as lower risk averse than men and less meet with corrupt activities because they enter the labor market later than men. In this regard, (Karimi et al., 2018), also concluded that with the increase of women participation in the public sector, corruption will decrease. Therefore, less gender inequality in the economy and politics leads to the less corruption. But according to a Europol report in 2019, " Crime has no gender." Therefore, this study investigates the issue in a different atmosphere from gender behavior and examines the issue in the framework of institutions. The present article investigates the gender behaviors of human in framework of government performance and religions. Corruption as a social complication has many negative economic effects such as reduced investment, economic growth, etc. (Tanzi, 1998). Therefore, it is rejected by all religions because of religion can influence human behavior and actions. Finally, a substantial body of recent research looks at differences in the behavior of men and women in diverse economic transactions. We contribute to this literature by investigating gender differences. So, this article tries to study the gender behaviors of human. This study shows that Islam and Christianity have no significant effect on relation between corruption and gender inequality index. But all the results showed that government performance does influence this relation. Also, the robustness test strongly confirmed the results of the study.

Methodology

The data are drawn from a wide range of sources. There are two major measures of corruption: Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI), that is the inverse of transparency, Anti-Money Laundering/Counter-Financing of Terrorism (AML). The CPI was obtained from Transparency International (TI), and it ranges from 0 to 10 where low values indicate high transparency and low corruption. Gender Inequality Index (GII) was used as gender index. Our data set contains 89 countries over 10 years (from 2008 to 2017). This study used the dynamic panel data approach, system generalized method of moments (GMM-SYSTEM) and Panel vector autoregressive model (PVAR) to examine the relationship between corruption and gender inequality, where the government performance and religions (Islam and Christianity) can link between corruption and gender inequality. In order to investigate the effect of countries (cross-sections), two groups of Muslim and Christian countries have been used. However, in order to investigate government performance effect on relation between corruption and gender inequality and examine robustness test the results of the study used two groups of instrument variables. The first group is the worldwide governance indicators (WGI) and second group is Fraser institute indicators.

Findings

In order to answer the question, does corruption more depend on gender or institutional factors? Despite the behavioral specifications of women, the rate of corruption in women is lower than men (Dollar et al., 2001). We find by System Generalized Method of Moments strong evidence about this prediction. Results show that women’s participation decreases corruption and that corruption decreases women’s participation in government; and both effects are substantively significant. However, the estimation results of the systems studied in the present article confirm that the relationship between corruption index and gender inequality is significantly affected by the way the government works. While religions have no effect on how the index of corruption and gender inequality affect each other. Therefore, it can be said that government performance is a missing loop in relationship between corruption and gender and its effects are statistically significant.

Discussion and Conclusion

Corruption is a historical, important and effective phenomenon. There is extensive researches about the factors of corruption. The social science literature indicates that women may be more honest or more risk averse and may have higher standards of ethical behavior and may be more concerned with the common good in comparison with men. This would imply that women are more willing to sacrifice private profit for the public good and this would be especially important for political and public life. Does greater participation of women in the public sector cause decreased corruption, or does greater corruption in government cause lower participation of women in government? In this study, our overall impression is that the evidence supports both propositions. So, the major aim in article is to explain the gender behavior of human to do corrupt activity in the formwork of government and religions using the dynamic panel data approach. Thus, this study used statistical data from 89 countries during 2008-2017, two corruption indicators, two groups of instrument variables and two groups of countries. The selection of countries was based on access to statistical data. The estimations show that religion has no significant effect on corruption and gender inequality index, i.e. Islam and Christianity have no significant effect on relation between corruption and gender inequality index. This study also investigated the impact of government performance on relation between two indices. In all systems, Sargan test has been confirmed. In summary, the results of estimated systems indicate that government institution is a missing loop in relationship between corruption and gender and its effects are statistically significant.

Keywords: Corruption, Money Laundering, Gender, religion, Government

JEL Classification: H11, H12, J08, J16, J18, O11
Keywords
Corruption
Money Laundering
gender
Religions
Government

Subjects

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Economic Research and Perspectives
Volume 23, Issue 2
Summer 2023
Pages 145-168