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 …

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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 …

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Study on the Extent and Costs of Corruption in the Education Sector in Uganda

Fazekas, Mihály; Adam, Isabelle; Nikulina, Olena; Dina Balabanova; Dávid-Barrett, Elizabeth; Hutchinson, Eleanor; Kirya, Monica; and Peiffer, Caryn (2021) Study on the Extent and Costs of Corruption in the Education Sector in Uganda. Inspectorate of Government, Uganda, Kampala.

The overall objective of the study is to generate empirical data on the cost and extent of corruption in the Education Sector Uganda that can be used for dialogue with stakeholders to inform anti-corruption policy formulation, strategies, and programs in the sector. The …

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Study on the Extent and Costs of Corruption in the Health Sector in Uganda

Fazekas, Mihály; Adam, Isabelle; Nikulina, Olena; Dina Balabanova; Dávid-Barrett, Elizabeth; Hutchinson, Eleanor; Kirya, Monica; and Peiffer, Caryn (2021) Study on the Extent and Costs of Corruption in the Health Sector in Uganda. Inspectorate of Government, Uganda, Kampala.

The overall objective of the study is to generate empirical data on the cost and extent of corruption in the Health Sector Uganda that can be used for dialogue with stakeholders to inform anti-corruption policy formulation, strategies, and programs in the sector. The …

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Study on the Cost of Corruption in Uganda

Fazekas, Mihály; Adam, Isabelle; and Nikulina, Olena (2021) Study on the Cost of Corruption in Uganda. Inspectorate of Government, Uganda, Kampala.

The report provides a detailed estimation of costs of corruption in Uganda for 2019. It considers both direct costs all those attributed to corrupt acts, and indirect costs all those that result from corrupt acts through a series of interactions in the longer term. The report also attributes the costs of corruption to different actors bearing the costs, such …

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Second annual summer school: Methodologies for monitoring anticorruption policies, state capture and public procurement integrity

Anti-corruption is not a final destination, but a consistent process of democratic renewal, checks and balances. Democratic backsliding in parts of Europe, fatigue over anti-corruption reforms, and the rising challenge from authoritarian powers, call upon public institutions, CSOs, investigative journalists and the whole society in Europe to take a stance and promote integrity. The use of big data, state-of-art research methodologies, and comprehensive systems of red flags, coupled with well-functioning civil society consultation mechanisms could greatly support good governance in …

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Second specialised regional training for R2G4P members: Innovative tools and methodologies for tracking illicit financial flows, state capture and corruption

In order to increase the capacity of its civil society and government partners to monitor, diagnose and tackle corruption risks, the R2G4P initiative is holding its second internal three-day regional training on 18-20 May 2022 in Budapest hosted by the GTI at CEU.

While the first training was structured around the initiative’s key methodologies, the current one explores new topics and areas, such as:

  • The conceptual framework of illicit finance and offshore wealth;
  • The role of the Financial Intelligence Units
…

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Poland Public Finance Review – Public Procurement: Saving and Greening

Fazekas, Mihaly; Ziolkowska, Barbara; and Regos, Nóra (2022) Public Procurement: Saving and Greening. In World Bank (2022) Poland Public Finance Review, World Bank, Washington DC. Chapter 4.

Poland’s public finance management was prudent in the years preceding the COVID-19 pandemic and facilitated a swift, substantial, and frontloaded policy response to the crisis. Poland built fiscal buffers in the years before the COVID-19 pandemic through spending containment and improved tax collections, aided by robust growth. This created the fiscal space …

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Assessing Vulnerabilities to Corruption in Public Procurement and Their Price Impact

Abdou, A., Basdevant, O., Dávid-Barrett, E. and Fazekas, M. (2022). Assessing Vulnerabilities to Corruption in Public Procurement and Their Price Impact. IMF WP/2022/094.

Public procurement can be highly vulnerable to corruption. This paper outlines a methodology and results in assessing corruption risks in public procurement and their impact on relative prices, using large databases on government contracts and tenders. Our primary contribution is to analyze how price differential in public procurement contracts can be explained by corruption risk factor (aggregated …

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Data update of World Bank, IADB, and EuropeAid datasets on development aid funded contracts and projects

The DFID-funded project “Curbing Corruption in Government Contracting” is releasing an update on the datasets collected on development projects, public tenders, and contracts for three major donor agencies: the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB), and EuropeAid. The datasets not only republish structured data gathered from official source websites, but also contain corruption risk red flags developed by the research team.

About the project

The project entitled “Curbing Corruption in Government Contracting” analyses how procurement can be manipulated for …

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