The Role of Corruption in Increasing Non-Performing Loans

Non-Performing Loans (NPL) is an old and widespread problems in developing countries that decrease assets quality and therefore is recognized as one of the sources of financial risk in banking system and has the negative effect on country economic performance. Among different factors, economic corruption can influences NPL, also. This research focus on link between corruption (by the number of financial crimes) and NPL in 20 banks during the period of 2006-2016 in Iranian economy. The results of different models estimation indicate that firstly, economic factors such as unemployment rate have the significant positive effect on NPL. Secondly, among banking variables there is a direct and significant relationship between the ratio of equity to assets and NPL. Thirdly, the interaction effect of corruption and bank size on NPL is positive and meaningful such that the spread of corruption, as banks become larger, lead to more NPL. The results of paper show that anti-corruption policies can help to decreasing NPL in Iran.