This paper contributes to the analysis of quantitative indicators (i.e., red flags or screens) to detect corruption in public procurement. Expanding the set of commonly discussed indicators in the literature to new ones derived from the operating practices of police forces and the judiciary,...

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...

This paper contrasts two auction formats often used in public procurement: first price auctions with ex-post screening of bid responsiveness and average bid auctions, in which the bidder closest to the average bid wins. The equilibrium analysis reveals that their ranking is ambiguous in terms of...

Reputational incentives may be a powerful mechanism for improving supplier performance and limiting the perverse effect of price competition on contract execution. We analyze a unique experiment run by a large utility company in Italy which introduced a new vendor rating system scoring its...

This paper contributes to the analysis of quantitative indicators (i.e., red flags or screens) to detect corruption in public procurement. Expanding the set of commonly discussed indicators in the literature to new ones derived from the operating practices of police forces and the judiciary,...