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

Bulgaria Public Finance Review 2023

Desislava Nikolova,  Collette Mari Wheeler,  Brian Erard, Monica Robayo,  Maynor Cabrera, Evan Harold Blecher, Mihaly Fazekas, Bence Tóth, Zdravko Veljanov, Viktoriia Poltoratskaia, et al. (2023) World Bank. 2023. Bulgaria Public Finance Review 2023. Washington, DC: World Bank

Bulgaria has traditionally adhered to fiscal discipline and prudent fiscal policy since the introduction of its currency board arrangement in mid-1997. After a gradual decline in the 2000s, public debt has remained among the lowest in the European Union (EU), hovering in a …

Read More

ECA Public Procurement Competition Dashboard

The European Court of Auditors, with assistance from GTI staff, launched an interactive dashboard for the “Special report 28/2023: Public procurement in the EU – Less competition for contracts awarded for works, goods and services in the 10 years up to 2021.” The report found that over the last decade, competition for public contracts has decreased, and that the 2014 reform of the EU directives did not succeed in reversing it. Overall, there is a lack of awareness of …

Read More

Bridges to Nowhere: State Capture and Corruption Risks in Fiscal Transfers and Public Procurement at the Local Level in Southeast Europe

Mineva, D., Kostova, T., Fazekas, M., Poltoratskaia, V. (2023). Bridges to Nowhere: State Capture and Corruption Risks in Fiscal Transfers and Public Procurement at the Local Level in Southeast Europe. Center for the Study of  Democracy. Sofia, Bulgaria.

This report analyses the risks entailed by the misuse of fiscal transfers from central to local governments in nine SEE countries (Bulgaria, Croatia, Hungary, Romania, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, North Macedonia, Montenegro, and Serbia). Such transfers are typically a tool of equalisation …

Read More

Governance Risk Assessment System (GRAS): Advanced Data Analytics for Detecting Fraud, Corruption, and Collusion in Public Expenditures

Ortega Nieto, D., Fazekas, M., Vaz Mondo, B., Tóth, B., Braem Velasco, R. A. (2023). Governance Risk Assessment System (GRAS): Advanced Data Analytics for Detecting Fraud, Corruption, and Collusion in Public Expenditures (English). Equitable Growth, Finance and Institutions Insight. Washington, D.C.: World Bank Group.

Corruption poses a significant threat to development and has a disproportionate impact on the poor and most vulnerable. Government agencies struggle to identify fraud and corruption in public expenditures. Risk assessments usually rely on manual …

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

Pharmaceutical prices and corruption risks dashboard

In 2022, the Government Transparency Institute and the Transparency International launched an interactive dashboard to shed light on the interplay between corruption risk and pharmaceutical prices. The comprehensive dataset, which encompasses detailed procurement contract information for pharmaceuticals across nine countries, allows for robust comparisons and trend analysis. The dashboard utilizes the Corruption Risk Index (CRI), a composite measure of corruption risk indicators, and unit prices of standardized pharmaceutical products (Anatomical Therapeutic Chemical Code of the WHO). The platform empowers stakeholders …

Read More

Efficiency gains from anti-corruption in pharmaceuticals procurement: Analysis of 9 countries across 3 continents

Veljanov, Z. and Fazekas, M. (2023). Efficiency gains from anti-corruption in pharmaceuticals procurement: Analysis of 9 countries across 3 continents. GTI-WP/2023:04, Budapest: Government Transparency Institute.

Public procurement of pharmaceutical products represents a large share of countries’ health care spending. The crucial importance of pharmaceutical products has been further exposed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Inefficiencies and corruption risks in public spending on the procurement of pharmaceuticals increase medical costs and place a heavy burden on national budgets and patients.
To support …

Read More