Corruption and competition in procurement auctions
研究腐败如何影响采购竞争，发现腐败不仅通过贿赂直接抬高合同价格，更关键的是它便利了企业间的合谋，导致价格大幅上涨，远超贿赂本身。
We investigate the effect of corruption on competition in procurement. Our assumption is that the bureaucrat (i.e., the agent that administers the market), if corrupt, may provide an opportunity for bid readjusments in exchange for a bribe. As firms expect to be paying a bribe, a mechanical effect of corruption is to increase the contract price by an amount corresponding to the anticipated bribe. We show, however, that a key effect of corruption is to facilitate collusion in price between firms and thereby to generate a price increase that goes far beyond the bribe received by the bureaucrat. We discuss the effect of other forms of bureaucratic discretion in the procurement process and analyze conditions under which unilateral anticorruption controls restore price competition.