Can democracy and religiosity explain corruption? An empirical study of cross-country data

Can democracy and religiosity explain corruption? An empirical study of cross-country data | Research Square window.SnipcartSettings = { analytics: { enabled: false } }; (function() { var accessVector = localStorage.getItem('access_vector') || ''; window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; if (accessVector) { window.dataLayer.push({ user: { profile: { profileInfo: { snid: accessVector } } } }); } })(); (function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src='https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-K279D39R'); Browse Preprints In Review Journals COVID-19 Preprints AJE Video Bytes Research Tools Research Promotion AJE Professional Editing AJE Rubriq About Preprint Platform In Review Editorial Policies Our Team Advisory Board Help Center Sign In Submit a Preprint Cite Share Download PDF Research Article Can democracy and religiosity explain corruption? An empirical study of cross-country data Martin Paldam This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-7857864/v1 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Posted Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Abstract The democracy-corruption relation and the religiosity-corruption relation are analyzed. Both univariate relations are strong in the cross-country perspective, which is taken to reflect the long run. Democracies are less corrupt, while religious countries are more corrupt. However, the relations belong to a complex pattern, with long soft lags and much spuriousness, as the three variables also have parallel transitions as a function of income. When the relations are controlled for the transitions, the effects decrease substantially but keep the signs. The religiosity-corruption relation has a micro-macro problem, as the positive sign in the between-country result is contradicted by a negative within-countries result. Jel: E26, K42, Z12 Corruption democracy indices religiosity transitions Full Text Additional Declarations No competing interests reported. Cite Share Download PDF Status: Posted Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Research Square lets you share your work early, gain feedback from the community, and start making changes to your manuscript prior to peer review in a journal. As a division of Research Square Company, we’re committed to making research communication faster, fairer, and more useful. We do this by developing innovative software and high quality services for the global research community. Our growing team is made up of researchers and industry professionals working together to solve the most critical problems facing scientific publishing. Also discoverable on Platform About Our Team In Review Editorial Policies Advisory Board Help Center Resources Author Services Accessibility API Access RSS feed Manage Cookie Preferences © Research Square 2026 | ISSN 2693-5015 (online) Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information {"props":{"pageProps":{"initialData":{"identity":"rs-7857864","acceptedTermsAndConditions":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"archivedVersions":[],"articleType":"Research Article","associatedPublications":[],"authors":[{"id":535225043,"identity":"9b41572d-cda9-4ba0-8db3-319a53db3ed9","order_by":0,"name":"Martin 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An empirical study of cross-country data","fulltext":[],"fulltextSource":"","fullText":"","funders":[],"hasAdminPriorityOnWorkflow":false,"hasManuscriptDocX":false,"hasOptedInToPreprint":true,"hasPassedJournalQc":"","hasAnyPriority":false,"hideJournal":true,"highlight":"","institution":"","isAcceptedByJournal":false,"isAuthorSuppliedPdf":true,"isDeskRejected":"","isHiddenFromSearch":false,"isInQc":false,"isInWorkflow":false,"isPdf":true,"isPdfUpToDate":true,"isWithdrawnOrRetracted":false,"journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"researchsquare","isNatureJournal":false,"hasQc":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"externalIdentity":"","sideBox":"","snPcode":"","submissionUrl":"/submission","title":"Research Square","twitterHandle":"researchsquare","acdcEnabled":true,"dfaEnabled":false,"editorialSystem":"","reportingPortfolio":"","inReviewEnabled":false,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":true},"keywords":"Corruption, democracy indices, religiosity, transitions","lastPublishedDoi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-7857864/v1","lastPublishedDoiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-7857864/v1","license":{"name":"CC BY 4.0","url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"},"manuscriptAbstract":"\u003cp\u003eThe democracy-corruption relation and the religiosity-corruption relation are analyzed. Both univariate relations are strong in the cross-country perspective, which is taken to reflect the long run. Democracies are less corrupt, while religious countries are more corrupt. However, the relations belong to a complex pattern, with long soft lags and much spuriousness, as the three variables also have parallel transitions as a function of income. When the relations are controlled for the transitions, the effects decrease substantially but keep the signs. The religiosity-corruption relation has a micro-macro problem, as the positive sign in the between-country result is contradicted by a negative within-countries result.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eJel: E26, K42, Z12\u003c/p\u003e","manuscriptTitle":"Can democracy and religiosity explain corruption? An empirical study of cross-country data","msid":"","msnumber":"","nonDraftVersions":[{"code":1,"date":"2025-10-30 15:58:02","doi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-7857864/v1","editorialEvents":[{"type":"communityComments","content":0}],"status":"published","journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"researchsquare","isNatureJournal":false,"hasQc":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"externalIdentity":"","sideBox":"","snPcode":"","submissionUrl":"/submission","title":"Research Square","twitterHandle":"researchsquare","acdcEnabled":true,"dfaEnabled":false,"editorialSystem":"","reportingPortfolio":"","inReviewEnabled":false,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":true}}],"origin":"","ownerIdentity":"f23dd933-4a43-40ee-9668-ff09e51b607b","owner":[],"postedDate":"October 30th, 2025","published":true,"recentEditorialEvents":[],"rejectedJournal":[],"revision":"","amendment":"","status":"posted","subjectAreas":[],"tags":[],"updatedAt":"2025-12-22T12:55:37+00:00","versionOfRecord":[],"versionCreatedAt":"2025-10-30 15:58:02","video":"","vorDoi":"","vorDoiUrl":"","workflowStages":[]},"version":"v1","identity":"rs-7857864","journalConfig":"researchsquare"},"__N_SSP":true},"page":"/article/[identity]/[[...version]]","query":{"redirect":"/article/rs-7857864","identity":"rs-7857864","version":["v1"]},"buildId":"8U1c8b4HqxoKbykW_rLl7","isFallback":false,"isExperimentalCompile":false,"dynamicIds":[84888],"gssp":true,"scriptLoader":[]}