What are the priorities of bureaucrats? Evidence from conjoint experiments with procurement officials
通过对芬兰和德国900多名真实公共采购官员的联合实验，发现他们最重视避免意外高价和选择有不良记录的供应商，而非追求最低价格。
While effective bureaucracy is crucial for state capacity, its decision-making remains a black box. We elicit preferences of 900+ real-world public procurement officials in Finland and Germany. This is an important pursuit as they report having sizeable discretion and minimal extrinsic incentives. Through conjoint experiments, we identify the relative importance of multiple features of procurement outcomes. Officials prioritize avoiding unexpectedly high prices over seeking low prices. Avoiding winners with prior bad performance is the most important feature. Officials avoid very low competition, while litigation risks and regional favoritism matter less. Preferences and office interests appear well-aligned among bureaucrats.