@misc{MungiuPippidiBozziniFazekasetal., author = {Mungiu-Pippidi, Alina and Bozzini, Alessandro and Fazekas, Mih{\´a}ly and Gutierr{\´e}z Chvalkovsk{\´a}, Jana and Khatib, Lina and King, Lawrence Peter and Skuhrovec, Jiř{\´i} and Stefanov, Ruslan and Stoyanov, Alexander and J{\´a}nos T{\´o}th, Istv{\´a}n and Velcheva, Boryana and Wilson, Andrew}, title = {The Anticorruption Frontline}, series = {The Anticorruption Report}, volume = {2}, journal = {The Anticorruption Report}, editor = {Mungiu-Pippidi, Alina}, publisher = {Barbara Budrich Publishers}, address = {Leverkusen Opladen}, isbn = {978-3-8474-0144-5}, pages = {128}, abstract = {From Turkey to Egypt, Bulgaria to Ukraine, and Brazil to India, we witness the rise of an angry urban middle class protesting against what they see as fundamental corruption of their political regimes, perceived as predatory and inefficient. Corruption is near the top of all global protesters' list of grievances - from the Occupy movement to the Arab Spring. Their countries have benefited to varying degrees from globalization, but their regimes have all failed to evolve politically to meet their expectations. Corruption has become the main explanation for failures in government performance, for networks of patrons and clients subverting fair competition, and for billions of Euro in disappearing public funds, national or foreign assistance income. The economic crisis exposed the hypocrisy of rich countries which control corruption at home but use it to advance their economic interests abroad. The rise in the last two decades of an international anti-corruption regime only raised awareness but failed so far to diminish corruption. There is increasing demand for good governance resulting in quality education and health systems, and denunciation of sheer bread and circus populism. Volume 2 of the ANTICORRP Anticorruption Report tackles these issues across key cases and developments. The report is grouped into three parts: 1. The frontline reports, tracing developments in Ukraine and Bulgaria, where people rebelled against corrupt leaders, plus Rwanda and Qatar, who advanced in good governance charts, but find themselves accused of sponsoring wars across borders or bribing FIFA officials; 2. The methodology to move beyond perception-based corruption indicators, in the form of a three-country study on procurement data which reveals how EU funds increase the risk of corruption in Central Europe; 3. The empirical evidence on why control of corruption works when it does, and does not work for the most part, in the shortened version of ANTICORRP's first milestone report.}, language = {en} } @techreport{CingolaniFazekas, type = {Working Paper}, author = {Cingolani, Luciana and Fazekas, Mih{\´a}ly}, title = {Administrative capacities that matter: organisational drivers of public procurement competitiveness in 32 European countries}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b1570-opus4-44115}, pages = {30}, abstract = {In spite of the many efforts in the pursuit of a European single market, many barriers continue to lie ahead, as the field of public procurement illustrates. In 2015, around 40\% of all high-value procurement tenders in a large pool of European countries attracted only 2 bidders or less, and only 3\% of all winning companies had their offices outside the procuring country. This paper explores a rather unaccounted dimension behind the competitiveness of tenders: the administrative capacities of contracting authorities. For this, we first build a theoretically-informed multidimensional framework of administrative capacities and subsequently test the effect of these capacities on competitiveness, by using a comprehensive and curated database of more than 120.000 procurement contracts in 32 European countries. The findings show that most administrative measures robustly explain a portion of competitiveness, in particular administrative aspects related to the choice of instruments and procedures to conduct the bidding calls, such as electronic procurement. Findings also show that the behaviour of these relationships is counterintiuitive at times, and highly dependent on the national context, suggesting that organizational path-dependency undermines convergence under EU regulation.}, language = {en} } @incollection{MungiuPippidiFazekas, author = {Mungiu-Pippidi, Alina and Fazekas, Mih{\´a}ly}, title = {How to Define and Measure Corruption}, series = {A Research Agenda for Studies of Corruption}, booktitle = {A Research Agenda for Studies of Corruption}, publisher = {Edward Elgar}, address = {London}, isbn = {9781789904994}, publisher = {Hertie School}, pages = {7 -- 26}, language = {en} } @incollection{FazekasCingolaniToth, author = {Fazekas, Mih{\´a}ly and Cingolani, Luciana and T{\´o}th, Bence}, title = {Innovations in objectively measuring corruption in public procurement}, series = {Governance Indicators: Approaches, Progress, Promise}, booktitle = {Governance Indicators: Approaches, Progress, Promise}, editor = {Anheier, Helmut K. and Haber, Matthias and Kayser, Mark A.}, publisher = {Oxford University Press}, address = {Oxford}, isbn = {9780198817062}, publisher = {Hertie School}, pages = {154 -- 185}, language = {en} } @misc{MungiuPippidiBratuCharronetal., author = {Mungiu-Pippidi, Alina and Bratu, Roxana and Charron, Nicholas and Dimulescu, Valentina and Doroftei, Madalina and Fazekas, Mih{\´a}ly and Kasemets, Aare and King, Lawrence Peter and Martinez Barranco Kukutschka, Roberto and Pop, Raluca and T{\´o}th, Istv{\´a}n J{\´a}nos}, title = {Controlling Corruption in Europe}, series = {The Anticorruption Report}, volume = {1}, journal = {The Anticorruption Report}, editor = {Mungiu-Pippidi, Alina}, publisher = {Budrich}, address = {Opladen}, isbn = {978-3-8474-0125-4}, pages = {128}, abstract = {Corruption has an impact. It is about time that anticorruption starts having an impact, too. This is the first annual policy report of the European Seventh Framework Research Project ANTICORRP, which has started in 2012 and will continue until 2018. Based on the work of 21 different research centers and universities gathering original data, ANTICORRP offers yearly updates on the latest from corruption research, analyzing both the consequences of corruption and the impact of policies attempting to curb it. This first report offers a methodology to evaluate corruption risk and quality of government at country, region and sector level by means of corruption indicators that are sensitive to change and policy intervention. The aim of the project is to offer testable, easy to handle policies which reduce corruption risk. Corruption distorts market competition, bolsters deficits on behalf of discretionary spending, hurts real investment in public health and education, reduces tax collection, detriments the absorption rate of EU funds, and generates vulnerable employment and brain drain. This study estimates that if EU member states would all manage to control corruption at the Danish level, tax collection in Europe would increase by 323 billion Euro per year - double of the EU budget for 2013.}, language = {en} } @misc{MuhittinDavidBarrettDimulescuetal., author = {Muhittin, Acar and David-Barrett, Elizabeth and Dimulescu, Valentina and Doroftei, Madalina and Emek, Uğur and Fazekas, Mih{\´a}ly and Karaboev, Stefan and Andr{\´a}s Luk{\´a}cs, P{\´e}ter and Mart{\´i}nez Barranco Kukutschka, Roberto and Mungiu-Pippidi, Alina and Podumljak, Munir and Sberna, Salvatore and Stefanov, Ruslan and J{\´a}nos T{\´o}th, Istv{\´a}n and Vannucci, Alberto and Wilson, Andrew and Yalamov, Todor}, title = {Government Favouritism in Europe}, series = {The Anticorruption Report}, volume = {3}, journal = {The Anticorruption Report}, editor = {Mungiu-Pippidi, Alina}, publisher = {Budrich}, address = {Opladen}, isbn = {978-3-8474-0795-9}, pages = {126}, abstract = {This volume on Government Favouritism in Europe reunites the fieldwork of 2014-2015 in the ANTICORRP project. It is entirely based on objective indicators and offers both quantitative and qualitative assessments of the linkage between political corruption and organised crime using statistics on spending, procurement contract data and judicial data. The methodology used in the analysis of particularism of public resource distribution is applicable to any other country where procurement data can be made available and opens the door to a better understanding and control of both systemic corruption and political finance.}, language = {en} } @techreport{FazekasCingolaniToth, type = {Working Paper}, author = {Fazekas, Mihaly and Cingolani, Luciana and T{\´o}th, Bence}, title = {A Comprehensive Review of Objective Corruption Proxies in Public Procurement: Risky Actors, Transactions, and Vehicles of Rent Extraction}, series = {GTI-WP/2016:03, Budapest: Government Transparency Institute}, journal = {GTI-WP/2016:03, Budapest: Government Transparency Institute}, doi = {10.2139/ssrn.2891017}, pages = {40}, abstract = {This paper can provide a comprehensive review of quantitative corruption proxies, conceptualise how different indicators capture different aspects of corruption, and identify gaps in the measurement landscape. Institutionalised, well-established corruption in government contracting aims to bypass fair and open competition in order to allocate contracts to companies belonging to the corrupt group. This requires at least i) corrupt transactions allowing for rent generation, ii) particularistic relations underpinning collective action of corrupt groups; iii) organisations enabling rent allocation (public organisations); and iv) organisations extracting corrupt rents (private companies). These four requirements of corrupt contracting serve as a framework for the review. We find that there is a surprisingly wide array of indicators validated in particular contexts, leaving generalisability unclear. It is also suggested that the academic literature has largely been preoccupied with one or the other type of corruption proxies such as personal connections without recognising their complementarities. Given the clandestine and often complex character of corrupt deals, a comprehensive measurement approach is advocated where each indicator sheds light on different aspects of the same corrupt phenomena.}, language = {en} } @techreport{CingolaniFazekasMartinezBarrancoKukutschkaetal., type = {Working Paper}, author = {Cingolani, Luciana and Fazekas, Mih{\´a}ly and Martinez Barranco Kukutschka, Roberto and T{\´o}th, Bence}, title = {Towards a comprehensive mapping of information on public procurement tendering and its actors across Europe}, abstract = {This report presents the results of a comprehensive mapping exercise of the scope and quality of public procurement and linked information in 35 European jurisdictions: 28 European Union member states, 6 EU neighbouring countries and the European Commission. Part I analyses the public procurement information hosted in national platforms and made available online for the average user. This analysis enables the classification and comparison of countries along a series of dimensions, such as the amount of historical data on individual tenders, the scope of tender documentation publicly available, the fragmentation of procurement information sources, and the degree of machine-readability of tender announcements, among several others. Parts II and III of the report complement the information on procurement processes and outcomes with information on the two main actors involved in these processes: bidders and buyers. In this context, part II maps existing relevant data on private companies and part III follows with data on the governmental units acting as contracting authorities in each of our 35 jurisdiction. Discussing information linked to public procurement tendering data goes beyond the description of this deliverable in the Description of Work.}, language = {en} } @article{FazekasCingolani, author = {Fazekas, Mih{\´a}ly and Cingolani, Luciana}, title = {Breaking the Cycle? How (Not) to Use Political Finance Regulations to Counter Public Procurement Corruption}, series = {The Slavonic and East European Review}, volume = {95}, journal = {The Slavonic and East European Review}, number = {1}, doi = {10.5699/slaveasteurorev2.95.1.0076}, pages = {76 -- 116}, abstract = {There are widespread perceptions and countless documented cases of tight-knit networks of politicians and businessmen colluding in the allocation of 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 curbing such corruption is well-understood. In order to advance our understanding of these phenomena, this paper tests whether political financing regulations can contribute to controlling corruption in public procurement. We utilize aggregated official micro-level data on almost 3 million contracts awarded across twenty-nine European countries from 2009 to 2014 to measure the risk of high-level institutionalized corruption using novel proxy indicators. Legislation regulating political finances is directly measured by coding national laws from 2009 to 2014. In cross-country panel regression and difference-in-difference models, we find that introducing additional political financing restrictions does not have a measurable negative impact on public procurement corruption risks. In fact, the observed effect is positive in most models. The observed relationship remains the same for most constitutive components of political financing regulations. Several challenges remain for a conclusive judgement on political party financing regulations' effectiveness in curbing corruption, such as measuring implementation rather than legislation, allowing for a longer lead-time for regulatory impact, or considering institutional inter-dependencies.}, language = {en} } @article{CingolaniFazekas, author = {Cingolani, Luciana and Fazekas, Mih{\´a}ly}, title = {The role of agencification in achieving value-for-money in public spending}, series = {Governance - An International Journal of Policy, Administration, and Institutions}, volume = {33}, journal = {Governance - An International Journal of Policy, Administration, and Institutions}, issn = {1468-0491}, doi = {10.1111/gove.12452}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b1570-opus4-34674}, pages = {545 -- 563}, abstract = {Agencification has been pursued globally under the promise of increasing public administration performance. In spite of ample theoretical arguments, the empirical evidence on the causal link between agencification and performance remains scarce and methodologically contested. We contribute to this debate by empirically testing the impacts of agencification across Germany, Spain, and the United Kingdom on value-for-money, competitiveness, and timeliness during the period 2006-2016. We use unique administrative datasets, enabling objective and granular measurements of reforms and their effects, employing quasi-experimental methods. Findings suggest heterogeneous effects both across countries and outcomes. On average, value-for-money improves by 2.8\% or 1.7 billion EUR over a decade, while outputs and processes change only marginally. Recently agencified organizations barely improve their performance, while older agencies achieve substantial improvements. The three countries' heterogeneous administrative contexts play a critical role as mediating factors, with the biggest changes occurring in higher new public management take-up countries.}, language = {en} }