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Political corruption follows the money
by Scott Gilbreath ~ December 12th, 2008
A new study published in the Journal of Law and Economics has found that corruption is strongly correlated with federal disaster relief funding.
Study finds link between political corruption and FEMA money
Where natural disasters strike, political corruption is soon to follow, say the authors of a study in the Journal of Law and Economics. But it’s not the wind and rain that turns good folks bad; it’s the money that floods in afterwards from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
“We find each $100 of FEMA-provided disaster relief increases the average state’s corruption by nearly 102 percent,” write Peter Leeson (George Mason) and Russell Sobel (West Virginia U.). “Our findings suggest that notoriously corrupt regions of the United States, such as the Gulf Coast, are in part notoriously corrupt because natural disasters frequently strike them. They attract more disaster relief, which makes them more corrupt.”
Corruption was measured by the per capita number of convictions of public officials for embezzlement, accepting bribes, etc. The study used data for the period 1990-99, so Hurricane Katrina was not a factor in the results.
The article’s abstract is posted here. The full text can be accessed for US$6 via this page.
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December 15th, 2008 at 04:20 PM
[...] MILKING DISASTERS: Political corruption follows the money …. [...]