# Is there any state that is a shithole but doesn't suffer from endemic corruption?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-state-that-is-a-shithole-but-doesnt-suffer-from-endemic-corruption/631562>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [August 15, 2012, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-state-that-is-a-shithole-but-doesnt-suffer-from-endemic-corruption/631562 "2012-08-15T14:07:46Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![yabob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yabob/32/2821_2.png) [@yabob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yabob)\
**Post date:** [August 24, 2012, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-state-that-is-a-shithole-but-doesnt-suffer-from-endemic-corruption/631562/21 "2012-08-24T18:40:51Z")

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> [@MikeS](#):
>
> I’m back from vacation; here’s a [link to the graph.](http://sites.williams.edu/ms10/articles/human-development-index-vs-corruption-index/) I hand-labelled the points that looked most outlier-y to me, but it’s really just my opinion. There’s probably a better way to quantify which points are outliers.
> 
> Apparently they use about seventeen different surveys of business leaders and experts in international affairs. There’s a link to a ZIP file containing their raw data, descriptions of their sources, and their methodology available in a link in [Question #5 in their FAQ.](http://cpi.transparency.org/cpi2011/in_detail/#myAnchor5)

Looking at that data, have you plotted it on a log scale? However those indices are constructed, the data appears to fit an exponential. Plot log(corruption) vs. HDI and see if it looks linear. It would probably make the outliers on the left side of the chart really stand out.

It could fit a power function, too, though biased. plot log(corruption - about 1.5) vs log(HDI).

It looks to me that as HDI increases, variance in corruption, either above or below the norm gets significantly less.

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**Author:** ![MikeS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/919ad9/32.png) [@MikeS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MikeS)\
**Post date:** [August 24, 2012, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-state-that-is-a-shithole-but-doesnt-suffer-from-endemic-corruption/631562/22 "2012-08-24T20:39:49Z")

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I just gave it a shot, but I didn’t find it terribly illuminating. The data seems to be equally well fit by both a power law with an offset (the exponent is about 10.1, offset of about 2.55) and an exponential (growth constant of about 8.2, offset of about 2.39.) Of course, this is largely explained by the fact that the ratio of maximum value to minimum value is only about 5 in both cases, which I don’t think is really enough to distinguish between a power law vs. an exponential.

I’ve also added a link to the raw data in the linked blog post above, if anyone else wants to play with it.

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