The Most Corruptingest State in the Union?

In August, I'll start working for Judge Kleinfeld of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in Fairbanks, Alaska. Good thing I already proved my ethical bona fides by passing the MPRE. According to Edward Glaeser & Raven Saks, I'll be living in the corruption capital of America. In their contribution to the Global Corruption Report 2006, they measure the relative corruption of the various states using the number of federal convictions per capita. Alaska comes in first (or is that last?) with 0.643 per 100,000, followed by Mississippi (0.612), Louisiana (0.513), South Dakota (0.472), and Tennessee (0.464). The Pacific Northwest leads the pack in rectitude, with Washington at #49 (0.104) and Oregon at #50 (0.074). Maybe the rain washes off the spots?
However, you can color me (tentatively) skeptical. Now I'm no social scientist. But I'm not convinced convictions per capita is the appropriate measure. If we're looking at federal corruption prosecutions, wouldn't convictions per federal employee be a better yardstick? Using Glaeser & Saks's figure for convictions 1990-2000, and the U.S. Census report on paid civilian employment in the Federal government for 1998, I came up with the following conviction rates, which make Alaska appear a much less formidable contender in the corruption contest:

• Alaska: 0.0030
• Mississippi: 0.0045
• Louisiana: 0.0109
• South Dakota: 0.0050
• Tennessee: 0.0052

The Northwest retains remarkably clean hands:

• Washington: 0.0017
• Oregon: 0.0012

But my home state and alma mater rather less so:

• California: 0.0044
• New York: 0.0072

Still, it appears the Empire State has yet to match the glorious levels of corruption achieved in the days of Boss Tweed and Tammany Hall.

Link via Marginal Revolution

UPDATE:

Professor Tabarrok points out the conviction figures are for "government officals," not just federal employees. So I've recalculated my figures, based on federal and state employees combined (and in parentheses, just state employees). The decimal places started to get a little long, so I've moved them over four places:

• Mississippi: 12.94 (14.80)
• Louisiana: 12.82 (14.51)
• Illinois: 12.26 (14.26)
• North Dakota: 11.88 (14.47)
• Montana: 10.33 (12.56)
• South Dakota: 10.03 (12.55)
• Tennessee: 8.38 (9.96)
• New York: 8.09 (9.11)
• Alaska: 7.06 (9.23)
• California: 6.58 (7.73)
• Oklahoma: 4.70 (5.71)
• Washington: 3.08 (3.75)
• Oregon: 1.78 (2.10)

These figures still don't match Glaeser & Saks's results. They report the following results for the "Top 10" convictions per capita:

• Alaska 0.643
• Mississippi 0.612
• Louisiana 0.513
• South Dakota 0.472
• Tennessee 0.464
• Illinois 0.458
• New York 0.439
• Oklahoma 0.415
• Montana 0.414
• North Dakota 0.398

Obviously, using the number of government officials rather than population makes a difference. Apparently, Alaska and Oklahoma have a high ratio of government officials, deceptively inflating their score.