Effect of cultural tightness-looseness on money laundering: a cross-country study

Mariem Mejri, Hakim Ben Othman, Basiem Al-Shattarat and Kais Baatour

Journal of Money Laundering Control, 2021, vol. 25, issue 2, 414-426

Abstract: Purpose - The purpose of this interdisciplinary cross-country study is to investigate the influence of cultural tightness-looseness on money laundering. Design/methodology/approach - The authors rely on tightness-looseness theory as the basis for their predictions. The authors use the Basel Anti Money Laundering Index to operationalize financial crimes. They use dynamic panel data regressions spanning from 2012 to 2018 across 66 countries. Findings - The authors find a positive and significant effect of national culture on money laundering financial crime. This suggests that financial crimes increase in countries with higher levels of cultural looseness orientation. Moreover, the authors show that the absence of violence, control of corruption, political stability and voice and accountability has a significant and negative influence on money laundering financial crime. Practical implications - Formal institutional factors are not the only factors that can help curb financial crimes, but policy regulators should also consider the degree of cultural tightness-looseness. Originality/value - To the best of authors’ knowledge, this is the first research ever to examine the effects of cultural tightness-looseness on the level of financial crimes.

Keywords: Anti-money laundering; Financial crimes; Cultural tightness and looseness; National culture; Cross-country study; M41; M48 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.110 ... d&utm_campaign=repec (text/html)
https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.110 ... d&utm_campaign=repec (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eme:jmlcpp:jmlc-03-2021-0025

DOI: 10.1108/JMLC-03-2021-0025

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Money Laundering Control is currently edited by Dr Li Hong Xing and Prof Barry Rider

More articles in Journal of Money Laundering Control from Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Emerald Support ().