Working papers

A comprehensive review of objective corruption proxies in public procurement: risky actors, transactions, and vehicles of rent extraction

Ágnes Czibik

Fazekas, M., Cingolani, L. and Tóth, B. (2016). A comprehensive review of objective corruption proxies in public procurement: risky actors, transactions, and vehicles of rent extraction. GTI-WP/2016:03, Budapest: Government Transparency Institute.

This paper can provide a comprehensive review of quantitative corruption proxies, conceptualise how different indicators capture different aspects of corruption, and identify gaps in the measurement landscape. Institutionalised, well-established corruption in government contracting aims to bypass fair and open competition in order to allocate contracts to companies belonging to the corrupt group. This requires at least i) corrupt transactions allowing for rent generation, ii) particularistic relations underpinning collective action …

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Corrupt Contracting: Partisan Favouritism in Public Procurement

Ágnes Czibik

David-Barrett, L and Fazekas, M (2016). Corrupt Contracting: Partisan Favouritism in Public Procurement. GTI-WP/2016:02, Budapest: Government Transparency Institute.

For politicians seeking to use a clientelist approach to achieve political and private gain, i.e., to prolong their hold on power and maximize personal profit, control of government contracting is a key tool. We theorise that politicians wishing to exploit government contracting for such ends will seek to increase their influence over three stages of public procurement – policy formation, implementation and monitoring – but that their efforts can be constrained by institutional controls and checks. We examine these influence strategies and …

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Breaking the cycle? How (not) to use political finance regulations to counter public procurement corruption

Ágnes Czibik

Fazekas, M and Cingolani, L (2017). Breaking the cycle? How (not) to use political finance regulations to counter public procurement corruption. In: The Slavonic and East European Review, Vol. 95, No. 1, January 2017. URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5699/slaveasteurorev2.95.issue-1

There are widespread perceptions and countless documented cases of tight-knit networks of politicians and businessmen colluding for allocating public procurement contracts in return for political party donations. In the absence of systematic evidence, neither the magnitude of the problem nor the effectiveness of policies curbing such corruption is well-understood. In order to advance our understanding of these phenomena, this paper tests whether political financing …

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Corruption in EU Funds? Europe-wide evidence on the corruption effect of EU funded public contracting

Ágnes Czibik

Fazekas, M. and Tóth, I. J. (2015). Corruption in EU Funds? Europe-wide evidence on the corruption effect of EU funded public contracting. GTI-WP/2015:01, Budapest: Government Transparency Institute.

It is theoretically ambiguous and empirically contested whether EU Funds contribute to lower corruption and better governance or the opposite. Many recipient countries benefit to a substantial degree with allocations amounting to 2-4% of their annual GDP. A range of positive and negative cases has been uncovered by the European Commission, national governments and the media, however, there has been no Europe-wide quantitative evaluation looking at the micro-level, arguably where corruption takes place. …

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Toolkit for detecting collusive bidding in public procurement – With examples from Hungary

Ágnes Czibik

Tóth, B, Fazekas, M, Czibik, Á, Tóth, I. J. (2014). Toolkit for detecting collusive bidding in public procurement – With examples from Hungary. GTI-WP/2014:02, Budapest: Government Transparency Institute.

Based on a synthesis of literature to-date, this paper provides a flexible indicator set deployable as a toolkit across many countries for detecting collusive bidding in public procurement. While no one-size-fits-all approach exists in detecting collusion, robust elementary indicators and analytical tools for adapting them to local contexts can be developed. The paper delivers a conceptual definition and theoretical discussion for each indicator as well as a complex empirical assessment using data …

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