Revisiting the Link between Politicians’ Salaries and Corruption.

Klasnja, Marko; Fazekas, Mihály & Al-Shaibani, Ahmed (2026) Revisiting the Link between Politicians’ Salaries and Corruption. British Journal of Political Science. 56:e20. doi:10.1017/S0007123426101392

It has long been argued that paying politicians higher salaries should help decrease corruption. However, the empirical evidence is mixed, partly due to the large variation in contexts, research designs, conceptual definitions and measures of corruption, and the predominance of case studies with potentially limited generalizability. To alleviate these challenges, we evaluate uniformly defined and validated corruption …

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Methodology for estimating financial savings resulting from transparency, accountability and participation

Fazekas, Mihály; Rudinac, Ivana; and Adam, Isabelle (2026) Methodology for estimating financial savings resulting from transparency, accountability and participation. CoST Infrastructure Transparency Initiative. London.

This report presents a methodology for measuring financial savings resulting from the implementation of transparency,
accountability and participation (TAP) interventions – in public infrastructure investments. It outlines a tailored impact
evaluation methodology developed by the Government Transparency Institute (GTI) in collaboration with the CoST- the
Infrastructure Transparency Initiative International Secretariat. The framework is based on publicly …

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National and regional annual aggregate statistics of public procurement spending and corruption risk indicators. A data export based on above EU threshold public tenders (2011-2025)

Government Transparency Institute (2026) National and regional annual aggregate statistics of public procurement spending and corruption risk indicators. A data export based on above EU threshold public tenders (2011-2025), Budapest: Government Transparency Institute. Version 2026/03. Link: https://www.govtransparency.eu/national-and-regional-annual-aggregated-public-procurement-data-TED-2011-2025-version-202603/

This data publication provides national and regional annual aggregate statistics on public procurement spending and corruption risk indicators across 30 European countries (EU-27, Iceland, Norway, and Switzerland) for the period 2011–2025. The statistics are derived from above EU-threshold public tenders published at Tenders …

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Data Engineer/Full-Stack Web Developer

The Government Transparency Institute is looking for a new Data Engineer/Full-Stack Web Developer colleague in Budapest/Vienna. We welcome experienced applicants to join our dynamic team to contribute contribute to high-impact public policy projects funded by the European Union, UN, IMF, and World Bank with developing data pipelines and scalable web platforms that make governance-related data accessible, searchable, and actionable.

Application process

We are currently hiring for the position on a first-come, first-served basis. Interested candidates are encouraged to apply …

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Public procurement cartels: A large-sample testing of screens using machine learning

Fazekas, Mihály; Tóth, Bence; Wachs, Johannes & Abdou, Aly (2026). Public procurement cartels: A large-sample testing of screens using machine learning. International Journal of Industrial Organization. 104.

Due to the high budgetary costs of public procurement cartels, it is crucial to measure and understand them. The literature developed screens that work well for selected cartel types and with high quality data, but it didn’t produce generalisable knowledge supporting policy and law enforcement on typically available datasets. We simultaneously measure multiple …

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Improving Public Procurement Outcomes: A Review of Tools and the State of the Evidence Base (2025 update)

Adam, Isabelle; Blum, Jürgen Rene; & Fazekas, Mihály. (2025) Improving Public Procurement Outcomes: A Review of Tools and the State of the Evidence Base (2025 update). GTI-WP/2025:01, Budapest: Government Transparency Institute.

Considering that about 15% of global GDP flows through public procurement systems, there is a strong need for evidence on what works in this field. This paper systematically reviews the state of the evidence in academic and policy literature on public procurement reforms and their impact on value for …

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Public procurement datasets underpinning the project on corruption risks and natural disasters

Government Transparency Institute (2025) Public procurement datasets underpinning the project on corruption risks and natural disasters, Budapest: Government Transparency Institute.

The project “The Corrupting Effect of Political Connections in Public Procurement through Crises” is releasing datasets on public tenders across 13 countries: Bangladesh, Brazil, Bulgaria, Chile, Dominican Republic, France, Georgia, Indonesia, Italy, Kenya, Paraguay, Peru, and Ukraine. Alongside the republished structured data gathered from official sources, the release also includes a set of corruption risk indicators developed by the …

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Developing a data-driven corruption risk model to strengthen integrity in Belgium. Practical considerations for the Federal Internal Audit.

Fazekas, Mihály; Poltoratskaia, Viktoriia; Wells, Helene; & Tierens, Michel. (2025). Developing a data-driven corruption risk model to strengthen integrity in Belgium. Practical considerations for the Federal Internal Audit. OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/e85587eb-en.

In light of increasing demands for transparency and accountability in public finance, digital transformation is emerging as a strategic priority for oversight and integrity institutions. This technical paper explores the experience of Belgium’s Federal Internal Audit (FIA) in developing a data-driven audit risk model, supported by the OECD …

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Public procurement data processing

Government Transparency Institute (2025) Public procurement data processing (Version 1.0). GTI-R/2025:06. Budapest: Government Transparency Institute.

Understanding government spending requires standardised and cross-country comparable data. This technical report accompanies GTI’s Global Public Procurement Dataset (GPPD) publication and explains how public procurement announcements are collected, parsed, cleaned, matched and mastered. The process starts with comprehensive source mapping and the automated scraping of HTML portals, XML feeds, APIs and CSV dumps. Each publication is then parsed into a unified JSON template. The cleaning …

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Procuring Low Growth : The Impact of Political Favoritism on Public Procurement and Firm Performance in Bulgaria

Fazekas, Mihaly; Poltoratskaya, Viktoriia; Marc Tobias Schiffbauer; Tóth, Bence. Procuring Low Growth : The Impact of Political Favoritism on Public Procurement and Firm Performance in Bulgaria (English). Policy Research Working Paper WPS11085; Prosperity Washington, D.C. : World Bank Group. 

This paper assesses the impact of favoritism in public procurement on private sector productivity growth. To this end, it combines three novel microeconomic data sets: administrative data on firms, including more than 4 million firm-year observations and rich financial and ownership …

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