Religion and the Money Laundering Risk

In this paper, we investigate the impact of religion on the money laundering risk, focusing specifically on Protestantism compared to other religions. Protestantism is often associated with greater individual self-discipline and stronger institutional economic governance. Analysing data from 27 EU member states, we find that Protestant countries exhibit a lower risk of money laundering. Additionally, our findings indicate that Protestantism exerts a distinct influence that is separate from the overall religiosity levels of countries. Our results remain robust across various estimation models and when incorporating additional governance and cultural control variables. This study enhances our understanding of the significant role that religion plays in shaping individual behaviour toward financial fraud, particularly money laundering.

• Publication year

  2025

• Venue

  Economies

• Publication date

  2025-03-31

• Fields of study

  Not labeled

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.3390/economies13040096
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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