Investigating the Relationship between Piety and Corruption

Economic corruption, as shifting social interests towards individual or group interests, has negative effects on societies. Factors affecting corruption can be exogenous or endogenous. Religion with an emphasis on ethical values can be an endogenous barrier to corruption. Therefore, in this paper, the aim is to investigate the effect of religiosity on corruption. The method used is to analyze questionnaire research. In the questionnaire, we measure simultaneously religiosity and corruption tendency and then analyze the relationship between the two. According to the results, with the increase in the level of religious subsets including beliefs, worship, morality and sharia, corruption tendency declines. If the levels of worship, morality, sharia, and social religiosity increase, individuals will not use their position for the self-interest. With increases in the religiosity level, people are less likely to use unauthorized ways to solve their problems. Also, partisanship and fraud decline, and the individuals are less likely to commit corruption in order to solve problems.