宗教传统、制度环境与地区官员腐败

Religious Tradition,Institutional Environment and Regional corruption

腐败与反腐败是当前我国面临的重大社会现实问题。除了制度监管与党纪约束外,中国传统文化及价值观也对官员行为与权力寻租形成重要约束。与以往围绕经济发展、政治结构、法律制度等视角的研究文献不同,本文重点考察宗教传统及其隐性约束对官员腐败行为的治理效果。基于1998~2009年省级面板数据的实证检验表明,我国传统宗教文化对抑制腐败产生了积极作用,地区宗教文化越发达,官员腐败程度则越低。同时,与道教相比较,佛教文化的腐败治理效果更明显。我们还发现,宗教传统与制度监管两种不同力量在防治腐败中存在替代效应：制度环境越落后的地区,宗教传统抑制腐败的积极效果越突出。

Currently,corruption and anti-corruption becomes the major social problem. Besides the institutional regulation and discipline constraint, Chinese traditional culture and values are also important constraints to officials＇ rent-seeking behaviors. Different from previous researches which focus on economic development,political structure and legal system,this paper mainly focus on the effect of traditional religious culture on officials＇ corruption. Based on the Chinese provincial panel data between 1998 ~ 2009,this empirical study found that traditional religious culture play an important and positive role in reducing officials＇ corruption. In specific,if the religious culture is stronger in one region,the extent of officials＇ corruption will be significantly lower. At the same time,comparing to Taoism,the anti-corruption performance of Buddhism is more prominently. Also,as two different mechanisms,we found that there is a substitution effect between traditional religious culture and marketing power. Namely,in the regions where the marketing process is slower,the effects of religious culture on anti-corruption will be more obviously.