IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/upf/upfgen/464.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Corruption and competition in procurement

Author

Abstract

We consider a procurement problem in which the procurement agent is supposed to allocate the realization of a project according to a competitive mechanism that values bids in terms of the proposed price and quality. Potential bidders have private information about their production costs. Since the procurement agent is also in charge of verifying delivered quality, in exchange for a bribe, he can allow an arbitrary firm to be awarded the realization of the project and to produce a quality level lower than the announced. We compute the equilibrium level of corruption and we study the impact on corruption of the competitiveness of the environment, and in particular of: i) an increase in the number of potential suppliers of the good or service to be procured, ii) competitive (rather than collusive) behavior of procurement agents, and iii) an increase of competition in the market for procurement agents. We identify the effects that influence the equilibrium level of corruption and show that, contrary to conventional wisdom, corruption may well be increasing in competition.

Suggested Citation

  • Marco Celentani & Juan J. Ganuza, 2000. "Corruption and competition in procurement," Economics Working Papers 464, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, revised Mar 2001.
    • Handle: RePEc:upf:upfgen:464
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://econ-papers.upf.edu/papers/464.pdf
    File Function: Whole Paper
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Shang-Jin Wei, 2000. "Natural openness and good government," Policy Research Working Paper Series 2411, The World Bank.
    2. Yeon-Koo Che, 1993. "Design Competition through Multidimensional Auctions," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 24(4), pages 668-680, Winter.
    3. Bliss, Christopher & Di Tella, Rafael, 1997. "Does Competition Kill Corruption?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 105(5), pages 1001-1023, October.
    4. R. Preston McAfee & John McMillan, 1987. "Competition for Agency Contracts," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 18(2), pages 296-307, Summer.
    5. Marco Celentani & Juan J. Ganuza, 1999. "Corruption and the Hadleyburg effect," Economics Working Papers 382, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra.
    6. Ades, Alberto & Di Tella, Rafael, 1997. "National Champions and Corruption: Some Unpleasant Interventionist Arithmetic," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 107(443), pages 1023-1042, July.
    7. Laffont, Jean-Jacques & Tirole, Jean, 1987. "Auctioning Incentive Contracts," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 95(5), pages 921-937, October.
    8. Laffont, Jean-Jacques & N'Guessan, Tchetche, 1999. "Competition and corruption in an agency relationship," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(2), pages 271-295, December.
    9. Beck, Paul J. & Maher, Michael W., 1986. "A comparison of bribery and bidding in thin markets," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 20(1), pages 1-5.
    10. Unknown, 1986. "Letters," Choices: The Magazine of Food, Farm, and Resource Issues, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 1(4), pages 1-9.
    11. Banfield, Edward C, 1975. "Corruption as a Feature of Governmental Organization," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 18(3), pages 587-605, December.
    12. Rafael Di Tella & Alberto Ades, 1999. "Rents, Competition, and Corruption," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(4), pages 982-993, September.
    13. Lien, Da-Hsiang Donald, 1987. "Asymmetric information in competitive bribery games," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 23(2), pages 153-156.
    14. Fernando Branco, 1997. "The Design of Multidimensional Auctions," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 28(1), pages 63-81, Spring.
    15. Marco Celentani & Juan-José Ganuza, 2002. "Organized vs. Competitive Corruption," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 109(1), pages 293-315, January.
    16. Laffont, Jean-Jacques & Tirole, Jean, 1991. "Auction design and favoritism," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 9(1), pages 9-42, March.
    17. Lien, Da-Hsiang Donald, 1986. "A note on competitive bribery games," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 22(4), pages 337-341.
    18. Riordan, Michael H & Sappington, David E M, 1987. "Awarding Monopoly Franchises," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 77(3), pages 375-387, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ahlin, Christian & Bose, Pinaki, 2007. "Bribery, inefficiency, and bureaucratic delay," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(1), pages 465-486, September.
    2. Amadou Amadou Boly & Kole Keita & Assi Okara & Guei Guei C. Okou, 2021. "Effect of corruption on educational quantity and quality : theory and evidence," Working Papers hal-03194726, HAL.
    3. Arjona Trujillo, Ana María, 2002. "La corrupción política: una revisión de la literatura," DE - Documentos de Trabajo. Economía. DE de021404, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. Departamento de Economía.
    4. Amaral, Miguel & Saussier, Stéphane & Yvrande-Billon, Anne, 2009. "Auction procedures and competition in public services: The case of urban public transport in France and London," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 17(2), pages 166-175, June.
    5. Minbo Xu & Daniel Z. Li, 2019. "Equilibrium competition, social welfare and corruption in procurement auctions," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 53(3), pages 443-465, October.
    6. Armstrong, Mark & Sappington, David E.M., 2007. "Recent Developments in the Theory of Regulation," Handbook of Industrial Organization, in: Mark Armstrong & Robert Porter (ed.), Handbook of Industrial Organization, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 27, pages 1557-1700, Elsevier.
    7. Seung Han Yoo, 2017. "Optimal Design for an Informed Auctioneer," Discussion Paper Series 1702, Institute of Economic Research, Korea University.
    8. Takeshi Nishimura, 2015. "Optimal design of scoring auctions with multidimensional quality," Review of Economic Design, Springer;Society for Economic Design, vol. 19(2), pages 117-143, June.
    9. Takeshi Nishimura, 2012. "Optimal Design of Scoring Auction with Multidimensional Quality," Global COE Hi-Stat Discussion Paper Series gd12-238, Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University.
    10. Diaby, Aboubacar & Sylwester, Kevin, 2015. "Corruption and Market Competition: Evidence from Post-Communist Countries," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 487-499.
    11. Yan Leung Cheung & P. Raghavendra Rau & Aris Stouraitis, 2012. "How much do firms pay as bribes and what benefits do they get? Evidence from corruption cases worldwide," NBER Working Papers 17981, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Wolfgang Maennig, 2004. "Korruption im internationalen Sport: ökonomische Analyse und Lösungsansätze," Vierteljahrshefte zur Wirtschaftsforschung / Quarterly Journal of Economic Research, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research, vol. 73(2), pages 263-291.
    13. Wolfgang Maennig, 2002. "On the Economics of Doping and Corruption in International Sports," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 3(1), pages 61-89, February.
    14. Gupta, Sanjeev & de Mello, Luiz & Sharan, Raju, 2001. "Corruption and military spending," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 17(4), pages 749-777, November.
    15. Samia Tavares, 2005. "Does Rapid Liberalization Increase Corruption?," Public Economics 0507003, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 31 Aug 2005.
    16. Roberta Gatti & Stefano Paternostro & Jamele Rigolini, 2003. "Individual attitudes toward corruption: do social effects matter?," Policy Research Working Paper Series 3122, The World Bank.
    17. Malay Biswas, 2017. "Are They Efficient in the Middle? Using Propensity Score Estimation for Modeling Middlemen in Indian Corporate Corruption," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 141(3), pages 563-586, March.
    18. Hai Wang & Weidong Zhang & Jingjing Wang, 2007. "Auctioning the state owned enterprise in China: the trade-off between maximizing revenue and minimizing unemployment," Economic Change and Restructuring, Springer, vol. 40(3), pages 267-280, September.
    19. Monica Escaleras & Nejat Anbarci & Charles Register, 2006. "Public Sector Corruption and Natural Disasters: A Potentially Deadly Interaction," Working Papers 06005, Department of Economics, College of Business, Florida Atlantic University, revised Aug 2006.
    20. Stephane Straub, 2005. "Corruption and Product Market Competition," Edinburgh School of Economics Discussion Paper Series 131, Edinburgh School of Economics, University of Edinburgh.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Corruption; competition; public procurement;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C72 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Noncooperative Games
    • D73 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Bureaucracy; Administrative Processes in Public Organizations; Corruption
    • H57 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - Procurement
    • K42 - Law and Economics - - Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior - - - Illegal Behavior and the Enforcement of Law

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:upf:upfgen:464. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.econ.upf.edu/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.