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Political Corruption in the Execution of Public Contracts

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  • Olga Chiappinelli

Abstract

This paper presents a novel theory of corruption in public procurement. It considers an agency setting of contract execution where the principal is a politician who can commit to a contract auditing policy. It is found that a benevolent politician, by choosing a sufficiently strict auditing, deters the contracting firm from padding costs, conversely, a selfish politician chooses a relatively lax auditing in order to create an incentive for cost-padding, and engages in corruption with the firm in case of detection. If the cost of auditing is high enough, even a benevolent politician might prefer to allow cost-padding.

Suggested Citation

  • Olga Chiappinelli, 2016. "Political Corruption in the Execution of Public Contracts," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 1607, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    • Handle: RePEc:diw:diwwpp:dp1607
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    Cited by:

    1. Gauthier, Bernard & Goyette, Jonathan & Kouamé, Wilfried A.K., 2021. "Why do firms pay bribes? Evidence on the demand and supply sides of corruption in developing countries," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 190(C), pages 463-479.
    2. Elena de la Poza & Lucas Jódar & Paloma Merello, 2021. "Modeling Political Corruption in Spain," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 9(9), pages 1-18, April.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Corruption in procurement; Cost-padding; Selfish politician; Endogenous auditing; Procurement contracts; Principal-agent model;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D73 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Bureaucracy; Administrative Processes in Public Organizations; Corruption
    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design
    • L51 - Industrial Organization - - Regulation and Industrial Policy - - - Economics of Regulation

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