The Costs of Corruption
According to <a href="http://www.governing.com/topics/politics/gov-corruption-politics-spendi…; target="”_blank”">an
article this week in<i> Governing </i>magazine</a>, a report in <i>Public
Administration Review</i> found that "more corrupt states tended
to spend money on construction, highways, and police protection
programs, which provide more opportunity for corrupt officials to
use public money for their own gain. These states spend less on
health, education, and welfare, which provide less opportunity for
officials to collect bribes, according to Indiana University's John
Mikesell, who co-authored the report with Cheol Liu of the
University of Hong Kong." The report is entitled "<a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/puar.12212/full" target="”_blank”">The Impact of Public Officials’ Corruption on the Size and Allocation of U.S. State Spending</a>."<br>
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The article looks at other costs of corruption, including of
institutional corruption, where no one is convicted of a crime or
found to have violated an ethics provision. These costs include the
higher costs to government when honest developers and contractors
choose not to bid on projects and contracts because they believe "the
winning bidder has already bought political favor." There are also
the unmeasurable costs that accompany a loss of public trust in
those who govern their communities.<br>
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The problem with the study on which this report was based is that,
like other such reports, it looks at corruption primarily in terms
of convictions of state officials. As a commenter notes, "By only
considering convictions, the places where corruption is tolerated
look good." The F.B.I. can still do sting operations in those states, but convictions will be lower than otherwise.<br>
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More important, such studies support the idea that criminal enforcement is the
best way to prevent government corruption, without considering the
far less expensive prevention mechanisms of government ethics
programs, including training, advice, and disclosure.<br>
<br>
Robert Wechsler<br>
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics<br>
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