public procurement

Assessing the potential for detecting collusion in Swedish public procurement

Mihály Fazekas, Bence Tóth (2016): Assessing the potential for detecting collusion in Swedish public procurement. Swedish Competition Authority Commissioned Research Reports 2016:3, Oktober 2016. 

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This research report provides a detailed discussion of three fundamental topics relevant for building a public procurement system in Sweden which supports both government accountability, and monitoring the risks of collusion. First, it offers a comparison of the current Swedish data system to a set of European best practices in terms of …

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DIGIWHIST policy recommendations: Towards More Transparent and Efficient Contracting in the European Union

Mara Mendes, Mihály Fazekas (2017): Towards More Transparent and Efficient Contracting – Public Procurement in the European Union. DIGIWHIST publications. March 2017. 

URL: https://opentender.eu/blog/2017-03-towards-more-transparency/

Approximately 15% of the EU’s Gross Domestic Product is spent every year on procuring goods and services, and some estimates indicate that corruption increases the cost of government contracts by 20 – 25%. It is even more worrying that corruption in public procurement compromises widely supported public goals, such as building safe highways, high quality school …

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Data publication: public procurement in Tanzania, 2009-2016

This publication contains Tanzanian public procurement data retrieved from the issues of Tanzania Procurement Journal between 2009 and 2016. The dataset was compiled as a part of the research project ‘Quantitative corruption analysis: implementation and case study’ with the ultimate aim of exploring ways to increase transparency and integrity through Big Data solutions.

The research project was carried out by researchers from the Mathematical Institute (University of Oxford), Statistical Services Centre (University of Reading), Department of Sociology (University of Cambridge), …

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Corrupt Contracting: Partisan Favouritism in Public Procurement

David-Barrett, L and Fazekas, M (2016). Corrupt Contracting: Partisan Favouritism in Public Procurement. GTI-WP/2016:02, Budapest: Government Transparency Institute.

For politicians seeking to use a clientelist approach to achieve political and private gain, i.e., to prolong their hold on power and maximize personal profit, control of government contracting is a key tool. We theorise that politicians wishing to exploit government contracting for such ends will seek to increase their influence over three stages of public procurement – policy formation, implementation and …

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Breaking the cycle? How (not) to use political finance regulations to counter public procurement corruption

Fazekas, M and Cingolani, L (2017). Breaking the cycle? How (not) to use political finance regulations to counter public procurement corruption. In: The Slavonic and East European Review, Vol. 95, No. 1, January 2017. URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5699/slaveasteurorev2.95.issue-1

There are widespread perceptions and countless documented cases of tight-knit networks of politicians and businessmen colluding for allocating public procurement contracts in return for political party donations. In the absence of systematic evidence, neither the magnitude of the problem nor the effectiveness of policies …

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Universalistic rules-particularistic implementation: The EU’s single market for government purchases

Fazekas, M and Skohrovec, J (2016). Universalistic rules – particularistic implementation: The EU’s single market for government purchases. GTI-R/2016:01, Budapest: Government Transparency Institute.

Open and fair access to government contracts has been a long-standing principle in many international trade agreements including the one on the EU’s single public procurement market which is probably the most extensive among them with its long standing common regulatory and enforcement framework. However, the ostensibly low prevalence of cross-border trade in European public procurement represents …

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From Corruption to State Capture. A New Analytical Framework with Empirical Applications from Hungary

Fazekas, M. – Tóth, I. J. (2016): From Corruption to State Capture. A New Analytical Framework with Empirical Applications from Hungary. Political Research Quarterly, published online before print on March 24, 2016 

http://prq.sagepub.com/content/early/2016/03/18/1065912916639137.abstract

State capture and corruption are widespread phenomena across the globe, but their empirical study still lacks sufficient analytical tools. This paper develops a new conceptual and analytical framework for gauging state capture based on microlevel contractual networks in public procurement. To this end, it establishes a novel …

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How to Construct a Public Procurement Database from Administrative Records? – Technical Report

Czibik, Á. – Fazekas, M. – Tóth, B. (2015): How to Construct a Public Procurement Database from Administrative Records? GTI-R/2015:02, Budapest: Government Transparency Institute.

This report aims to provide a comprehensive outline of the potential challenges of building a database from publicly available public procurement records and the possible solutions to the identified problems. We use Hungary as an illustrative example as most problems faced in other countries are present there, and so any finding will be widely applicable. The …

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Corruption in EU Funds? Europe-wide evidence on the corruption effect of EU funded public contracting

Fazekas, M. and Tóth, I. J. (2015). Corruption in EU Funds? Europe-wide evidence on the corruption effect of EU funded public contracting. GTI-WP/2015:01, Budapest: Government Transparency Institute.

It is theoretically ambiguous and empirically contested whether EU Funds contribute to lower corruption and better governance or the opposite. Many recipient countries benefit to a substantial degree with allocations amounting to 2-4% of their annual GDP. A range of positive and negative cases has been uncovered by the European Commission, national governments …

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Toolkit for detecting collusive bidding in public procurement – With examples from Hungary

Tóth, B, Fazekas, M, Czibik, Á, Tóth, I. J. (2014). Toolkit for detecting collusive bidding in public procurement – With examples from Hungary. GTI-WP/2014:02, Budapest: Government Transparency Institute.

Based on a synthesis of literature to-date, this paper provides a flexible indicator set deployable as a toolkit across many countries for detecting collusive bidding in public procurement. While no one-size-fits-all approach exists in detecting collusion, robust elementary indicators and analytical tools for adapting them to local contexts can be developed. The …

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