Commentary: Does Corruption Drive Government Spending?
| Date | 01 May 2014 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/puar.12227 |
| Published date | 01 May 2014 |
| Author | Rose Gill Hearn |
Does Corruption Drive Government Spending? 359
Commentary
Rose Gill Hearn, principal with
Bloomberg Associates, led the New York
City Department of Investigation for 12
years (2002–13). During her tenure, the
department participated in investigations
that resulted in criminal or administrative
penalties against nine elected offi cials on
corruption or confl ict of interest charges.
Previously, Hearn served for 10 years as
assistant U.S. attorney in the U.S. Attorney’s
Offi ce for the Southern District of New York,
where she was deputy chief of the Criminal
Division. She is currently chair of New York
City’s Campaign Finance Board and serves
as chair of the Advisory Board of the Center
for the Advancement of Public Integrity at
Columbia University Law School.
E-mail: rhearn@bloomberg.org
Public Administration Review,
Vol. 74, Iss. 3, pp. 359–360. © 2014 by
The American Society for Public Administration.
DOI: 10.1111/puar.12227.
Rose Gill Hearn
Bloomberg Associates
Practitioners in the public integrity arena are
invariably busy managing the constant daily
demands of investigations, prosecutions, and
new matters. We need to set them aside periodically
and focus on a larger picture, assess our impact, and
explore new ideas to improve our eff ectiveness. In my
previous post as commissioner of the New York City
Department of Investigation (DOI), I found that our
discussions and conferences bringing together schol-
ars, civil society activists, and thoughtful practitioners
were transformative. e studies and presentations
off ered fresh ideas, stimulated discussion, and encour-
aged innovation. In that spirit, I am grateful for this
opportunity to review a thought-provoking new
article by Cheol Liu and John L. Mikesell.
e article, “ e Impact of Public Offi cials’
Corruption on the Size and Allocation of U.S. State
Spending,” draws a strong connection between a state’s
level of public corruption and its spending. e study
suggests that in nine of the United States’ 10 most cor-
rupt states, as measured by the authors, public corrup-
tion drove annual spending upward by an average of
$1,308 for each person residing in the state, compared
with per capita spending in a state with only an aver-
age level of corruption. e authors also fi nd that the
most corrupt states tend to “favor capital, construc-
tion, highways, total salaries and wages, borrowing,
correction, and police protection, at the expense of
social sectors such as total education, elementary and
secondary education, health, and hospitals.”
Measuring corruption is a challenge for practitioners and
international organizations. Transparency International
compiles the well-known Corruption Perceptions Index,
which ranks 177 countries and territories based on “a
combination of surveys and assessments … by a variety
of reputable institutions.” Transparency International
explains the diffi culty: “Corruption generally comprises
illegal activities, which are deliberately hidden and only
come to light through scandals, investigations or pros-
ecutions. ere is no meaningful way to assess absolute
levels of corruption in countries or territories on the
basis of hard empirical data.”1
Liu and Mikesell rank the U.S. states for corruption
based on the number of public offi cials in each state
convicted of federal corruption-related crimes during
a 33-year period (1976–2008), as reported by the
Public Integrity Section of the U.S. Department of
Justice. e total number of such convictions exceeds
25,000, according to the authors, who opine that they
provide “a more objective, concrete, and consistent
measure of cross-state variations in corruption” than
perception-oriented corruption indexes.
To account for variations in size among the 50 states,
Liu and Mikesell measure each state’s convictions
Does Corruption Drive Government Spending?
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