This paper deals with a Niskanen type of public-procurement agency. It is shown that the procurement game should be separated into an investment game and a project game, the first game to be played before nature determines the actual real-izations of benefit and costs of the project, the second...

The benefits of bureaucratic discretion depend on the extent to which it is used for public benefit versus exploited for private gain. We study the relationship between discretion and corruption in Italian government procurement auctions, using a confidential database of firms and procurement...