Ethical Government and Ethical Conduct: A Statistical Study

It's difficult to show clearly that ethical government correlates with ethical conduct. However, last year Raymond Fisman and Edward Miguel came up with <a href="http://www.nber.org/digest/feb07/w12312.html">a study</a> that does this: They studied parking tickets given to United Nations diplomats in Manhattan.

Because, until 2002, there was zero enforcement of parking rules for diplomats, they were given a carte blanche or, if you will, were tempted to act unethically (breaking rules for private gain when enforcement is not a consideration). The behavior of the diplomats correlated strongly with public corruption scores given by the World Bank to their home countries. Even off in New York, the diplomats tended to act like officials back home. Kuwaiti diplomats were the worst offenders (246 unpaid tickets per diplomat), and diplomats from such countries as Canada, Ireland, and the Scandinavian nations had the fewest unpaid tickets.

Wouldn't it be nice if we could do a similar test for people from, say, Memphis and Chicago versus ... versus where? What cities do have the most ethical governments? What are the cities we should be holding up as examples?

By the way, the Bloomberg administration started enforcing the laws, and this had a significant effect on the diplomats' behavior.