The Role of Information Transparency in Public Procurement: the Example of Russian Regions

It is an open question whether a more transparent public procurement leads to the more efficient outcomes. In the paper we show how transparency of the public procurement in the Russian regions is correlated with key factors that influence the outcomes of procurement procedures - competition, corruption, and control. Using the open information we evaluate availability and usability of different types of information presented on regional procurement websites by constructing a number of indices. Our empirical study shows that the transparency of information is significantly and negatively correlated with the level of corruption in the region and increases the utilization of control mechanisms. We also show that the more transparent systems are associated with the higher levels of competition.