Public Procurement's Long COVID : Emergency Responses and Shifting Corruption Risks in Europe
本文利用2016-2023年欧洲高价值政府采购数据，发现疫情支出激增后腐败风险持续上升，尤其在中等诚信国家，主要源于无疫情产品经验的市场进入者利用薄弱管控获取大额合同，且腐败风险从疫情相关产品向医疗和更广市场溢出。
ABSTRACT The COVID‐19 pandemic caused an unprecedented surge in spending to combat the pandemic with widespread accusations of corruption. The magnitude, drivers, and trajectory of corruption across the pandemic response remain underexplored. This paper approximates the impacts of the pandemic on public procurement corruption risks and the mechanisms underpinning their persistence and diffusion. Administrative data on all high‐value, regulated government tenders across Europe from 2016 to 2023 are analyzed. Fixed‐effects regressions on the contract level estimate the impact of the pandemic‐induced spending shock on corruption risks. We find that the COVID‐19 spending surge was followed by sustained increases in corruption risks, particularly in medium‐integrity countries. This is largely driven by market entrants without COVID‐19‐product experience exploiting weaker pandemic corruption controls to secure large contracts. We also find small spillover effects from corruption risks in COVID‐19‐related products to healthcare and wider procurement markets, driven by buyers normalizing emergency procurement practices beyond emergency contracts.