Do anticorruption efforts affect banking system stability?

This paper examines whether the level of anticorruption efforts in a country affects the stability of its banking system. After analyzing banking system stability in a large international sample of 26,865 of bank-year observations across 40 countries during 1987-2013, we argue that the following factors are involved: (1) anticorruption efforts, (2) inflation rate, (3) transparency, and (4) adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards. Our results support the idea that having a high anticorruption rating is related to high banking system stability. We also find that this relationship depends on a country's inflation rate and level of country-level investor protection, supporting the notion that anticorruption is relatively more important in poorer information environments. In addition, given that anticorruption has a stronger effect on financial stability when banks are within a corrupt environment, we posit that corruption may have insider marginal effects.