Why is collecting and analysing data about public procurement so damned difficult? Data scientists explain some common problems

David-Barrett, E. (2019). Why is collecting and analysing data about public procurement so damned difficult? Data scientists explain some common problems. Originally published on the ACE-Global Integrity blog: https://ace.globalintegrity.org/dataexplainer/

Open data is often lauded as a magic pill for anti-corruption: reveal what’s going on, inform the public, and, presto, government will become more accountable. Oh, and big data just means bigger gains, right?

Not quite. We have written elsewhere about the institutional and political challenges that can hinder the transparency …

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Grand corruption and government change: an analysis of partisan favoritism in public procurement

Dávid-Barrett, E. & Fazekas, M. (2019). Grand corruption and government change: an analysis of partisan favoritism in public procurement. European Journal on Criminal Policy and Research. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10610-019-09416-4

Incoming governments sometimes abuse their power to manipulate the allocation of government contracts so as to buy loyalty from cronies. While scandals suggest such practices are relatively widespread, the extent of such partisan favoritism is difficult to measure and the conditions under which it flourishes under-theorized. Drawing on theory regarding the role
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Elections and corruption: incentives to steal or incentives to invest?

Fazekas, M. & Hellmann, O. (2019). Elections and corruption: incentives to steal or incentives to invest? GTI-WP/2019:02, Budapest: Government Transparency Institute.

Despite the fact that most political systems around the world now hold regular multi-party elections, we know little about the effect of elections on political corruption. To address this gap in the literature, we employ a multi-method research design—combining unmatched and matched quantitative comparisons with a qualitative small-N study of Indonesia and the Philippines—to analyse a novel government contracting …

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Big data analytics as a tool for auditors to identify and prevent fraud and corruption in public procurement

Adam, I. & Fazekas, M. (2019). Big data analytics as a tool for auditors to identify and prevent fraud and corruption in public procurement. European Court of Auditors Journal 2/2019: pp. 172-179.

ECA Journal Short Read:

Government contracts and big data analytics – big data in public procurement can help auditors on two levels: (1) it can facilitate decisions about monitoring, audit and investigations; (2) it can inform country or sector-wide policy decisions on resource allocation and regulations.

Measuring corruption …

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Single bidding and non-competitive tendering procedures in EU co-funded projects

Fazekas, M. (2019). Single bidding and non-competitive tendering procedures in EU co-funded projects. Brussels: European Commission Directorate-General for Regional and Urban Policy.

Transparency, efficiency and competition in public procurement are essential for ensuring sound investments resulting in concrete benefits for both businesses and citizens. The 7th Cohesion Report pointed out that open and transparent public procurement is essential to promote development and reward the most efficient firms. However, the use of open procedures, the intensity of competition and the …

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Agency Design, Favoritism and Procurement in the United States

Dahlström, C., Fazekas, M., & Lewis, D. E. (2019). Agency Design, Favoritism and Procurement in the United States. QoG Working Paper Series 2019:4, ISSN 1653-8919.

The U.S. federal government spends huge sums buying goods and services from outside of the public sector. Given the sums involved, strategic government purchasing can have electoral consequences. In this paper, we suggest that more politicized agencies show favoritism to entrepreneurs in key electoral constituencies and to firms connected to political parties. We evaluate these

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Auction Length and Prices: Evidence from Random Auction Closing in Brazil

Oliveira, A., Fabregas Masllovet, A. & Fazekas, M. (2019). Auction Length and Prices : Evidence from Random Auction Closing in Brazil (English). Policy Research working paper; no. WPS 8828. Washington, D.C.: World Bank Group. 

Electronic reverse auctions are the most used competitive method for procurement of goods and non-consulting services by the Federal Government of Brazil. These auctions are closed randomly, which perfectly satisfies fairness considerations but may be suboptimal from an efficiency perspective. There are concerns that tenders are …

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Analytics for Integrity: Enhancing Integrity Risk Assessments through Data-Driven Approaches

OECD (2019). Analytics for Integrity: Enhancing Integrity Risk Assessments through Data-Driven Approaches. Available at: https://www1.oecd.org/gov/ethics/analytics-for-integrity.pdf

Effective risk management in infrastructure projects relies on strategic and robust risk assessments in order for managers to identify risks and adapt controls to mitigating them. Risk assessments are often qualitative, relying on observations of employees and experts involved in the projects. To complement these perception-based approaches, those responsible for managing risks in infrastructure—project managers, procurement officials and risk managers—can take advantage of data analytics …

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Objective corruption risk indicators that use donor project and contract data

Fazekas, M. & Márk, L. (2017). Objective corruption risk indicators using donor project and contract data. GTI-R/2017:02, Budapest, Government Transparency Institute, September 2017.

To validate our red flags we use macro level perception-based indicators and test if these move together with the country-level averages of our red flags. We also try to find testable micro level relationships either on contract- or project-level data and check if different red flags are consistent with each other. The three donors largely differ in

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Social capital predicts corruption risk in towns

Wachs, J., Yasseri, T., Lengyel, B., Kertész, J. (2019). Social capital predicts corruption risk in towns. Royal Society Open Science 6: 182103. http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsos.182103

Corruption is a social plague: gains accrue to small groups, while its costs are borne by everyone. Significant variation in its level between and within countries suggests a relationship between social structure and the prevalence of corruption, yet, large-scale empirical studies thereof have been missing due to lack of data. In this paper, we relate the structural …

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