Behavioral economics and monetary wisdom: A cross‐level analysis of monetary aspiration, pay (dis)satisfaction, risk perception, and corruption in 32 nations

Corruption involves greed, money, and risky decision-making. We explore the love of pay satisfaction, probability risk, dishonesty across cultures. Avaricious monetary aspiration breeds unethicality. Prospect theory frames decisions in gains-losses domain high-low probability. Pay dissatisfaction (in losses domain) incites name justice at individual level. The Perceptions Index, CPI, signals a getting caught for country theorize that decision-makers adopt avaricious love-of-money as lens frame (pay satisfaction-dissatisfaction, Level 1) (CPI, 2) to maximize expected utility ultimate serenity. challenge myth: satisfaction mitigates nations consistently. Based on 6500 managers 32 countries, our cross-level three-dimensional visualization offers following discoveries. Under high conditions, excites highest- (third-highest) justice-seeking (medium) CPI nations, supporting certainty effect. However, provokes second-highest opportunity-seizing low entities, sustaining possibility effect—maximizing utility. consistently leads dishonesty, demonstrating risk aversion—achieving expand prospect from micro individual-level wisdom nations. enhance S-shaped Curve three 3-D corruption surfaces levels global economic pyramid, providing novel insights into behavioral economics, business ethics, environment, responsibility.