[EL] Study ranks states on corruption

Tue Jun 17 10:24:20 PDT 2014

For those interested; here's a working paper on measuring public corruption.
http://web.missouri.edu/~milyoj/files/Measuring%20Corruption_V1.3.pdf
We are revising currently, so comments welcome.

Summary: The Indiana study uses low quality data from the Public Integrity Section of the DOJ --- most studies do as well, but it is undeniably lousy data.
And the CPI/PRI study is nonsense for all the reasons mentioned by Luke below

Jeff Milyo
milyoj at missouri.edu

From: law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu [mailto:law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu] On Behalf Of Luke Wachob
Sent: Tuesday, June 17, 2014 11:59 AM
To: law-election at department-lists.uci.edu
Subject: Re: [EL] Study ranks states on corruption

Measuring corruption is difficult, but the CPI/PRI study doesn't even try. It measures subjective "risk" of corruption instead, primarily by grading state laws. That makes it useless for resolving questions of which laws foster greater risk of corruption. For example, CPI/PRI's study gives a state a better grade for having low contribution limits and a lower grade for allowing unlimited contributions. It does not show that lower limits are better, it merely asserts it. That's fine for CPI/PRI to make an index of state laws and grade them on how much they happens to like those laws, but they shouldn't pretend it's a study about corruption. And really, does anyone think New Jersey is the least corrupt state in the nation?

Luke Wachob│lwachob at campaignfreedom.org<mailto:mnese at campaignfreedom.org>

McWethy Fellow, Policy Analyst
Center for Competitive Politics
124 S. West St., Ste. 201
Alexandria, VA 22314
Direct: (703) 894-6844
www.campaignfreedom.org<http://www.campaignfreedom.org/>

From: law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu<mailto:law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu> [mailto:law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu] On Behalf Of Dan Meek
Sent: Tuesday, June 17, 2014 12:15 PM
To: Sean Parnell; law-election at department-lists.uci.edu<mailto:law-election at department-lists.uci.edu>
Subject: Re: [EL] Study ranks states on corruption

The methodology of the study is backwards.  It measures corruption by the number of convictions in each state for corruption-type offenses:
"The report provides the number of federal, state, and local public officials convicted of a corruption-related crime across the states."
That is not a measure of corruption; it is a measure of corruption fighting.

These sorts of studies (including this one) nearly always find that Oregon is not very corrupt.  But Oregon has no limits on campaign contributions, for example.  So a corporate contribution of $1 million (or any amount) to any candidate here is legal.  The same contribution in most other states would be illegal and would be categorized as a corruption-type offense.  This study concludes that the lack of such law makes Oregon less corrupt.

The study makes no sense.  It is like saying that, if murder was legal in Michigan, then Detroit would be the safest city in America.  After all, there would be zero convictions for murder there, if murder were legal.

The Center for Public Integrity/PRI corruption study has a better methodology.  See http://www.stateintegrity.org.  It ranked New Jersey as the top state in fighting corruption.  The new study ranks it 31.  The CPI/PRI study has this top 10.  The number in parenthesis is the state's ranking in the new study.  Note in particular New Jersey, Mississippi, and Tennessee.

  *   1st New Jersey  (31)<http://www.stateintegrity.org/new_jersey>

  *   2nd Connecticut  (22)<http://www.stateintegrity.org/connecticut>

  *   3rd Washington  (2)<http://www.stateintegrity.org/washington>

  *   4th California  (20)<http://www.stateintegrity.org/california>

  *   5th Nebraska (7)<http://www.stateintegrity.org/nebraska>

  *   6th Mississippi (49)<http://www.stateintegrity.org/mississippi>

  *   7th Iowa  (6)<http://www.stateintegrity.org/iowa>

  *   8th Tennessee  (45)<http://www.stateintegrity.org/tennessee>

  *   9th Rhode Island  (24)<http://www.stateintegrity.org/rhode_island>

  *   10th Kansas  (11)<http://www.stateintegrity.org/kansas>
The new study has this top 10, with the CPI/PRI ranking in parenthesis.  Note the differences for Oregon, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Utah, Colorado, Vermont, and Wisconsin.

  1.  Oregon  (14)
  2.  Washington (2)
  3.  Minnesota (25)
  4.  New Hampshire  (35)
  5.  Utah  (36)
  6.  Iowa (7)
  7.  Nebraska (5)
  8.  Colorado (33)
  9.  Vermont (26)
  10. Wisconsin (24)

Dan Meek

503-293-9021

dan at meek.net<mailto:dan at meek.net>

866-926-9646 fax

On 6/17/2014 8:34 AM, Sean Parnell wrote:
Ran across this study, purporting to rank all 50 US states (but not DC, it looks like) by how corrupt they are: http://www.policymic.com/articles/90963/the-10-most-and-10-least-corrupt-states-in-america

I'm not going to vouch for the findings, just thought it was interesting given how often we talk here about eliminating or curbing corruption. I'd note that the findings don't seem to correlate especially closely with either the campaign finance 'reform' or deregulation concepts of what either side might think would lead to a more or less corrupt political system, at least not at first glance - someone could probably do a closer analysis than I have time for and see if there's anything beyond a weak correlation.

Sean Parnell
President
Impact Policy Management, LLC
6411 Caleb Court
Alexandria, VA  22315
571-289-1374 (c)
sean at impactpolicymanagement.com<mailto:sean at impactpolicymanagement.com>

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