Russell Sobel and Peter Leeson, economists from the West Virginia University, have written a paper for George Mason University’s Mercatus Center that suggests a link between the frequency and severity of natural disasters on the one hand and government corruption on the other. Using state-by-state data on successful federal prosecutions of government corruption, Sobel and Leeson found that states such as Louisiana and Florida, prone to disastrous storms and resulting expenditures by FEMA, have higher corruption rates than inland states with calmer weather. The regression yielded a robust relationship: for each additional $1 in annual per-person FEMA relief, the average corruption-prosecution rate was 2.5 percent higher.

Sobel speculated that the causal factors might include the breakdown of civil authority after storms and the fact that lots of federal money sloshing around creates more opportunities for the unscrupulous and more temptations for the weak. The solution is, of course, to privatize disaster aid to the extent practicable.