Countering Public Grant Fraud in Spain: Machine Learning for Assessing Risks and Targeting Control Activities

OECD (2021), Countering Public Grant Fraud in Spain: Machine Learning for Assessing Risks and Targeting Control Activities, OECD Public Governance Reviews, Paris: OECD Publishing, https://doi.org/10.1787/0ea22484-en.

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, marked by a high volume of accelerated spending, fraud risks have become a pressing concern for governments worldwide. In this environment, public control and audit bodies play a vital role to ensure money is well spent and vulnerabilities are spotted and addressed quickly. In Spain, the General Comptroller of the State Administration (Intervención General de la Administración del Estado, IGAE) is at the forefront of the country’s efforts to prevent and detect fraud. This report reflects the initiative and commitment of the IGAE to tap into cutting-edge approaches, including state-of-the-art methodologies in artificial intelligence and machine learning.

Dr. Mihaly Fazekas designed the machine learning model described in Chapter 2 and drafted Chapter 3, with support from Viktoriia Poltoratskaia.

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