Integrity levels in public procurement

The graphs show the distributions of integrity scores of almost 12. mil public procurement contracts, in 32 European countries and across the EU institutions, from 2009 to 2018. The integrity scores are calculated according to Fazekas and Kocsis (2015). The higher the score, the higher the integrity level or administrative capacity (low corruption risk). Georgia, Portugal and Romania have missing values on integrity indicators, so meaningful analyses could not be performed. (See note on methodology and data source at the end of the post)

How to read box plots:

• The median - the mid-point of the data and is shown by the line that divides the box into two parts. Half the scores are greater than or equal to this value and half are less.
• Inter-quartile range - the “box” represents the middle 50% of scores for the group.
• Upper quartile - 75% of the scores fall below the upper quartile.
• Lower quartile - 25% of scores fall below the lower quartile.
• Whiskers - the upper and lower whiskers represent scores outside the middle 50%.

Data source: https://opentender.eu/download

List of indicators used to estimate integrity levels (Fazekas and Kocsis 2015):

Integrity indicators

• SINGLE BID: single bid vs multiple bids were received
• CALL FOR TENDER_PUBLICATION: no announcement vs announcement published
• ADVERTISEMENT PERIOD: advertisement period length is risky vs advertisement period length is not risky
• PROCEDURE TYPE: procedure type is non-open or has higher probability of single bidding vs the procedure type is open.
• DECISION PERIOD: if it is related positively to single bidding vs if it is not related to single bidding
• TAX HAVEN: supplier is registered in a tax haven country based on the Financial Secrecy Index (cut-off point: 59.5) vs supplier is not registered in a tax haven country
• NEW COMPANY: if the supplier is less than one year old vs if the supplier is more than one year old when winning the contract

Administrative capacity indicators

• CENTRALIZED PROCUREMENT: if the tender is a centralized procurement vs not a centralized procurement
• ELECTRONIC AUCTION: if the tender does not vs if it uses an electronic auction in the awarding process
• COVERED BY GPA: if the tender does not use vs it uses a WTO framework agreement
• FRAMEWORK AGREEMENT: if the tender is not vs if it is a framework agreement
• ENGLISH AS FOREIGN LANGUAGE: if the buyer has not accepted bids in English as a foreign language vs if it has
• NOTICE AND AWARD DISCREPANCIES: share of fields with the same values in the CFT and CA documents

Transparency indicators

• NUMBER OF KEY MISSING FIELDS: share of key non-missing fields in any call for tender or contract award document related to the tender

Comments and feedback are welcome!