Of course, the utterly cynical amongst us (a category within which I proudly reside) might suggest that Mississippi simply convicts more corrupt public officials per capita than any other state. I might argue (and I shall) that true corruption cannot be measured, since those who are "best" at corruption are never caught, never convicted. So, I conclude that Nebraska is in fact the most corrupt state in the union, since very few of their public officials are convicted of corruption.

(I operate under the assumption that within any population of ordinary human beans, the propensity for corruption, evil, skullduggery & acting-like-one-wasn't-raised-right is constant. I also believe that with any population of politicians the likelihood for these traits is far higher than in the general population.)

Well, we crossed the panhandle and then we headed towards Amarillo
We pulled up where Henry Porter used to live. He owned a wreckin' lot outside of town about a mile.
Ruby was in the backyard hanging clothes, she had her red hair tied back. She saw us come rolling up in a trail of dust.
She said, "Henry ain't here but you can come on in, he'll be back in a little while."

Then she told us how times were tough and about how she was thinkin' of bummin' a ride back to where she started.
But ya know, she changed the subject every time money came up.
She said, "Welcome to the land of the living dead." You could tell she was so broken-hearted.
She said, "Even the swap meets around here are getting pretty corrupt."

"How far are y'all going?" Ruby asked us with a sigh.
"We're going all the way 'til the wheels fall off and burn,
'Til the sun peels the paint and the seat covers fade and the water moccasin dies."
Ruby just smiled and said, "Ah, you know some babies never learn."

- Dylan, "Brownsville Girl"

Invictus: Take a look at the study. Its pretty revealing. First, the dependent variable is Federal convictions, a measure that is going to be relatively unaffected by local conditions (zealous prosecututors or AG's like Mike Moore, corrupt local judiciary).

Second, the models they develop are pretty consistent with conditions in Mississippi. Levels of education and income are their most powerful explanatory factors (a negative relationship with measured levels of public corruption), while racial heterogeneity is weakly related. They find no relationship between size or growth in goverment and corruption levels.

Mississippi is poor, poorly education, and has weak social and political institution. Yes, its highly corrupt.

Invictus wrote:

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qwerty wrote: Invictus: Take a look at the study. Its pretty revealing. First, the dependent variable is Federal convictions, a measure that is going to be relatively unaffected by local conditions (zealous prosecututors or AG's like Mike Moore, corrupt local judiciary). Ah, my dear qwerty, but you're assuming that the Federal government is above corruption <snicker> But my point was that all Mississippi's high "corruption rate" means is that our crooked public officials aren't very good at being crooked, or at least they're much less proficient than those in Nebraska!

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Aha! The Dumb and Dumber theory.

Invictus is rights about convictions rates varying across states since convictions usually require cooperation from citizens willing to testify. Also, Mississippi's numbers may be biased because of the success of Operation Pretense which netted numerous convictions. (Jim Crockett of USM has a book about Operation Pretense.) The study under discussion is flawed since there is a critical missing variable that is connected to political corruption. That variable is the number of years that one political party has been in power in a state or political jurisdiction. In the South and many large cities, that has been the Democratic Party. It is just as likely to happen if the Republican Party has been in power for a long time. While several Southern states have turned Republican in national elections, they still have large areas where the Democrats have a stranglehold on the local elections. States and localities where the local and state races are competitive are less likely to have corrupt officials since it is more difficult to collude across party lines.

Second Look wrote:

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It takes lots of money to cover up corruption. Fewer financial resources to cover up corruption are available in Mississippi. It's not surprising that Mississippi would rank at the top of a list like this. I doubt there is very little difference in the actual corruption among the various states. There are many ways to slice these data. Mississippi is, again, the whipping boy.

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Hold on! Be loud and proud of the poor South's recent contributions to graft and corruption. We are world class in this area, and would make the old ward bosses of South Side Chitown and Tamany Hall north of the Mason Dxon line green with envy. Lay, Skilling, Ebbers, Scrushy, to name a few, stole with the best of them. Their thieving brought down, or severly affected, massive pension funds, worldwide communications systems, state economies, and energy markets. Impressive.