Collusion Risk in Corporate Networks

Isabela Villamil, János Kertész, and Mihály Fazekas (2024) Collusion Risk in Corporate Networks. Scientific Reports, 14.

Collusion among economic operators increases prices, reduces product quality, and hinders innovation. Structural links can affect the incentive and ability of firms to behave competitively by facilitating collusion. We use a network-based approach to study the relationship between ownership links and bidding behavior in procurement markets. We build temporal multiplex networks based on firms’ ownership and co-bidding ties to find network measures that may …

Read More

Data Analytics for Anti-Corruption in Public Procurement

Poltoratskaia, Viktoriia & Fazekas, Mihály (2024) Data Analytics for Anti-Corruption in Public Procurement. In Sope Williams and Jessica Tillipman (eds.) Routledge Handbook of Public Procurement Corruption. Chapter 4. Routledge.

This chapter describes and analyses the ways in which data analytics can be used for countering corruption in public procurement. It also discusses the main challenges for effective data-driven anti corruption in public procurement. We propose a simple conceptual framework, which distinguishes petty and grand corruption. Depending on the type of …

Read More

Corruption Risks in Emergencies

Fazekas, Mihály & Nishchal, Shrey (2023) Corruption Risks in Emergencies. In Elgar Concise Encyclopedia of Corruption Law. Chapter 38. Edward Elgar Publishing.

Following disasters, governments need to implement a range of responses, including the procurement of essential supplies in a short time to fulfil urgent needs. Good procurement principles such as open competition and value for money may hamper timely emergency response. Therefore, emergency clauses, which allow for deviations from open competition, are a standard component of government procurement laws. …

Read More

Elections and Corruption: Incentives to Steal or Incentives to Invest?

Fazekas, M., Hellmann, O. (2023) Elections and Corruption: Incentives to Steal or Incentives to Invest?. Studies in Comparative International Development. 

By now, most political systems around the world hold regular multiparty elections of different quality and type. However, we know relatively little about the effect of elections on corruption, especially in high-discretion, public procurement contracts implementing development aid. To address this gap in the literature, we employ unmatched comparisons and matching estimators to analyze a global government contracting dataset that …

Read More

Government Analytics Using Procurement Data

Cocciolo, S., Samaddar, S. and Fazekas, M. 2023. Government Analytics Using Procurement Data. in Rogger, D. and Schuster, C. (editors) 2023. The Government Analytics Handbook: Leveraging Data to Strengthen Public Administration. Washington, DC: World Bank, Chapter 12.

 

The digitalization of national public procurement systems across the world has opened enormous opportunities to measure and analyze procurement data. The use of data analytics on public procurement data allows governments to strategically monitor procurement markets and trends, to improve the procurement …

Read More

Firm performance, imperfect competition, and corruption risks in procurement: evidence from Swedish municipalities

Wittberg, E. and Fazekas, M. (2023). Firm performance, imperfect competition, and corruption risks in procurement: evidence from Swedish municipalities. Public Choice 197, 227–251.

 

Previous research has shown that corruption risks may distort market incentives in high-risk contexts. However, there is a dearth of evidence on the potential impact of corruption in settings characterized by low corruption and high-quality institutions. Against that background, this paper delves deeper into the alleged consequences of corruption by examining the link between corruption risks

Read More

Agency independence, campaign contributions, and favouritism in US federal government contracting

Fazekas, M., Ferrali, R., Wachs, J. (2022). Agency independence, campaign contributions, and favouritism in US federal government contracting. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, muac026. https://doi.org/10.1093/jopart/muac026

The impacts of money in US politics have long been debated. Building on principal-agent models, we test whether and to what degree companies’ political donations lead to their favoured treatment in federal procurement. We expect the impact of donations on favouritism to vary by the strength of control by political principals over their …

Read More

Networked Corruption Risks in European Defence Procurement

Czibik, Á., Fazekas, M., Sanchez, A.H., Wachs, J. (2021). Networked Corruption Risks in European Defense Procurement. In: Granados, O.M., Nicolás-Carlock, J.R. (eds) Corruption Networks. Understanding Complex Systems. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-81484-7_5

In this chapter we study corruption risks in EU defence procurement. Defense procurement has long been thought to present significant potential for corruption and state capture. Using a large dataset of contracts covering nearly ten years and applying an objective corruption risk indicator, we find strong empirical support for this …

Read More

Development aid contracts database: World Bank, Inter-American Development Bank, and EuropeAid

Fazekas, M., Abdou, A., Kazmina, Y. and Regős, N. (2022). Development aid contracts database: World Bank, Inter-American Development Bank, and EuropeAid. Data in Brief, Volume 42, 1-16. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dib.2022.108121 

This article presents a global database of government contracts funded by the World Bank, Inter-American Development Bank and EuropeAid, principally from the years 2000-2017. The contract-level data were directly collected from the official contract publication sites of these organisations using webscraping methods. While the source publication formats are diverse both over time …

Read More

Public procurement under and after emergencies

Fazekas, M., Nishchal, S. and Søreide, T. (2021): Public procurement under and after emergencies. In Bandiera, O., Bosio, E. and Spagnolo, G. (Ed.), Procurement in Focus – Rules, Discretion, and Emergencies. London: CEPR Press. pp.33-42. 

Covid-19 has served as a global case study for increased discretion in public procurement, with governments worldwide making rules more flexible to increase spending, reduce the damage, and save lives. This CEPR eBook provides fascinating insights into the tension between rules and discretion in public …

Read More