Andrey Tkachenko

Current projects

Public opinion and casualties in wartime censorship (paper) (with Marina Vyrskaia)

How reliable are public opinion polls in wartime censorship of authoritarian regimes? Academic debates on this question have arisen with renewed vigor after the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine and media coverage of the substantial support for the invasion by the majority of the Russian population. We answer this question by exploiting 36 waves of public opinion polls for February 2022 - March 2024, which accounted for 51,740 responses and objective behavioral measures in sub-national Russian regions and municipalities. First, we show that the ordinal geographical variation in public opinion corresponds well to the objective measures - war support is significantly lower in regions with higher anti-war protest activity, while claimed war participation is higher in regions with higher objective war participation activity. Second, we demonstrate a selective non-response in public opinion polls based on these objective measures, suggesting that the cardinal levels of war support are biased. Third, using the staggered nature of casualties by the regions, we show a strong negative effect of casualties on war support and a positive impact on the demand for a truce after correction for the selective non-response. We show that social media is the information dissemination mechanism about casualties, while other media are not. Finally, by exploiting residential addresses for a subset of soldiers killed in action, we demonstrate that the casualties in immediate proximity to the respondents' municipalities reduced the willingness to vote for Vladimir Putin in the 2024 presidential elections.

Attitude to the war in Ukraine and economic distress (slides) (with Marina Vyrskaia)

Economic prosperity is considered the primary determinant of popularity in informational autocracies (Guriev & Treisman 2022). But what is the role of economic distress in the attitude to full-scale war initiated by them? This paper studies the evolution of attitudes of the Russian population to the war in Ukraine from March 2022 to April 2023, its main demographical determinants, and the role of economic sanctions. We show that nominal support for the war varied from 51% to 66%, with the highest support in Spring 2022 and the lowest support during the military mobilization and the adoption of the new law for electronic military notifications. We document a salient result related to the respondents’ welfare and the economic problems induced by sanctions, such as income reduction and job loss. Wealthier people who have not met any economic problems since the start of the war support the war more, experience less anxiety, and are more likely to expect an improvement in their future financial state. However, the economic problems met by the wealthier respondents induced stronger effects on all these opinions compared to the poorer people, suggesting that economic problems create more losses for the wealthier people. We further show that these welfare and economic problems effects are directly connected to the experience of sanctions effects.

Language Affinity, Russian Media and Sanctions Evasion (paper) (with David Karpa, Michael Rochlitz, Meruyert Tatkeyeva, Galiya Sagyndykova)

Does language affinity with a former colonizing power make countries vulnerable to outside influence? Combining multiple survey waves, online search statistics, a survey experiment, and international trade data, we study this question for Kazakhstan. We show a shift towards pro-Russian opinions among the Russian-speaking population of Kazakhstan after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, caused by an increase in consumption of Russian media, and relate it to an increase in exports of sanctioned goods to Russia. Our results shed light on the mechanisms by which former colonial powers can influence beliefs and economic behavior in their former colonies in wartime.

Working papers

Competitive effects of vertical integration in auctions (Job Market Paper and slides)

This paper studies the competitive effects of vertical integration between pharmaceutical drug producers and distributors in an auction setting. Utilizing data on 814,000 public procurement auctions in Russia, I identify the causal effect of vertical integration on the procurement prices of drugs. For drugs with few producers, vertical integration increases prices by 12%, while it decreases prices by 1.7% for drugs with many producers. I propose a model where distributors participating in a procurement auction negotiate with upstream producers. In the equilibrium, foreclosure explains the former empirical finding, while the exogenous synergy of the integration drives the latter effect. I use this model for the structural estimation of producer and distributor costs for drugs with two producers. Simulations show that a vertical merger with a synergy effect below 4% of the total cost harms the buyer. For a vertical merger with low synergy, the mandatory sharing of the production technology by the merging producer with a new independent firm is an effective remedy.

State-business relations and access to external financing, BOFIT Discussion Papers 10/2022, 2022.

Firms' contractual relations with a state may give lenders a positive signal and facilitate access to debt. This paper studies the impact of public procurement contracts on firms' access to debt using an extensive survey of Russian manufacturing firms combined with accounting and procurement data. It shows that earnings from state-to-business contracts increase the short-term debt twice as much as revenue from private contracts. Long-term debt is not affected by public contracts differently compared to private contracts. The debt sensitivity to public contracts is four times larger for politically connected firms, although it is still positive and significant for non-connected and small firms. The paper concludes that political connection does not entirely suppress the beneficial access to debt that public contracts create.

Trust, Reputation, and Institutions in Public Procurement: Evidence from Transitional Economies, SSRN Scholarly Paper, 2022 (with Milena Emelianova, Andrei Yakovlev, and Juraj Nemec).

This paper studies trust-based efficiency gains in the public sector, focusing on transitional economies. We surveyed public buyers in Russia and Slovakia in 2020 and show that market reputation-oriented justified trust positively relates to procurement efficiency, while unjustified trust does not. However, the association between justified trust and procurement efficiency is insignificant when long-term relational practices dominate or when courts are strong. The latter suggests that the quality of contract enforcement institutions is a substitute for the market reputation. A model of the buyer-supplier trust game for incomplete contracts justifies the results.

Pro-social Rule Breaking: Evidence From Public Procurement, SSRN Scholarly Paper, 2023 (with Kira Silvestrovich and Andrei Yakovlev)

In private and public sectors, employees and bureaucrats often found themselves bounded by the strict regulation. Being unable to achieve the prescribed KPI under the current regulation, they violate the formal rules. While such deviations are considered a negative phenomenon in most studies, this paper investigates the concept of pro-social rule breaking, focusing on public sector. We use an example of public procurement as a part of public sector activity with strict regulation and high potential for opportunistic behavior. Using the survey of bureaucrats responsible for public procurement activity in Russia in 2020 we demonstrate the gap in how the regulator and bureaucrats comprehend the procurement efficiency. While the regulation induces actions for nominal efficiency, those bureaucrats, who are willing to achieve the real efficiency had to deviate from the prescribed rules. We use the list experiment to show that this rule-breaking behavior of bureaucrats is implemented via informal connections with suppliers, though rent-seeking incentives are not a driver for the informal connections. We conclude that pro-social rule breaking is quite common in public procurement in Russia, and the regulator should consider the goals of market participants to avoid this paradox.

Selected publications (full list Google Scholar)

Set-aside auctions and small businesses participation in public procurement: an empirical analysis, Applied Economics, 2025, doi: 10.1080/00036846.2025.2460745 (with Gegam Shagbazian, Paola Valbonesi, and Elena Shadrina)

We investigate the effects of set-aside (SA) auctions supporting small business participation in public procurement, exploiting an original database of e-auctions for Russian granulated sugar (a largely homogeneous good) in the period 2011–2013. This affirmative action programme – as in many others similar and commonly adopted programmes by governments – records confounding effects. On the one hand, SA auctions attract more small business enterprises; on the other hand, SA auctions restrict the entry of possibly more cost-efficient large firms. Our findings highlight that SA auctions, on average, determine lower final prices for the procurer than non-SA (NSA) auctions do, although competition in SA auctions is not higher. We show that these findings depend on the reserve price intervals, supporting the effectiveness of SA auctions for small-scale procurement.

Public Procurement Efficiency and Enforcement: Evidence from Kazakhstan and Russia, International Journal of Public Administration, 2025, doi: 10.1080/01900692.2025.2452918 (with Yuliya Rodionova, Olga Balaeva, Andrei Yakovlev)

This paper examines the role of enforcement institutions and public procurement efficiency in two transition economies. Based on a survey of suppliers in Kazakhstan and Russia, the analysis reveals significant differences in public procurement efficiency assessments. Kazakhstani suppliers, on average, evaluate public procurement efficiency lower and report a higher number of procurement problems. These differences can be explained by variations in enforcement practices and weak mechanisms for protecting supplier rights in the case of procurers’ non-compliance with obligations in Kazakhstan. Thus, we empirically show that Kazakhstani suppliers encountering such formal procedural violations during the contract execution stage made significantly lower assessments of public procurement efficiency.

Informal practices and efficiency in public procurement, Public Money & Management, 2024, 44(3), 225–233, doi: 10.1080/09540962.2022.2159169 (with Yuliya Rodionova, Juraj Nemec, Andrei Yakovlev).

This article studies the practice of predetermined choice of suppliers in public procurement in postsocialist countries. The authors conducted an online survey of suppliers in Russia and Slovakia in 2020, revealing that, despite different models of procurement regulation, this practice was being widely used in both countries. Some were justifying predetermined choice to guarantee delivery and quality. Surprisingly, Russian suppliers assessed the efficiency of public procurement higher than Slovak suppliers, which can be explained by more efficient monitoring and conflict resolution via the courts. The authors conclude that Slovakia possesses an insufficient level of monitoring and law enforcement in public procurement. This article contributes to the literature on procurement efficiency by emphasizing the crucial role of monitoring and law enforcement rather than regulation.

Public Procurement Efficiency as Perceived by Market Participants: The Case of Russia, International Journal of Public Administration, 2021, 45(16), 1156–1167, doi: 10.1080/01900692.2021.1964083 (with Olga Balaeva, Yuliya Rodionova, Andrei Yakovlev)

This paper studies the indicators of public procurement efficiency as perceived by procurers and suppliers and what barriers must be overcome to consider procurement efficient. The authors used an online survey of Russian procurers and suppliers conducted in 2020 as the main data source. Methods based on comparison of descriptive statistics and distributions of answers for different subsamples were exploited. The analysis reveals that, despite the importance of fighting corruption and increasing competition, most participants consider the supply of high-quality goods and timely contract execution the most important criteria. COVID-19 has mitigated the rigidity of the regulation but exacerbated the ambiguity problem. During the pandemic, contract execution worsened. To improve procurement efficiency, the regulator should clearly specify requirements and consider the main participants’ interests.

Gender heterogeneity of bureaucrats in attitude to corruption: Evidence from list experiment, Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 2021, 189, 217-233, doi: 10.1016/j.jebo.2021.06.034 (with Andrei Yakovlev and Polina Detkova).

A high level of corruption usually constrains economic development in emerging countries. However, anti-corruption campaigns often fail because the relevant policies need to be implemented by existing corrupt governments. This article studies the extent of bureaucrats’ heterogeneity in attitude to the problem of corruption. Due to the sensitivity of direct questions on corruption, we conduct the list experiment among public procurement officials in Russia. We show that female bureaucrats consider corruption an obstacle to public procurement development, and find no such evidence for male bureaucrats. This heterogeneity holds even at the high-level occupied positions. Although the negative attitude to corruption does not necessarily imply the anti-corruption activity by women, recognition of the problem seems to be a prerequisite for supporting an anti-corruption policy.

The Changing Perceptions of Corruption during the COVID Pandemic in Russia, 2021, a chapter at “Procurement in Focus: Rules, Discretion, and Emergencies”, CEPR Press, editors: Oriana Bandiera, Erica Bosio, and Giancarlo Spagnolo (with Andrei Yakovlev, Polina Detkova, Pavel Pronin)

This paper studies the dynamic changes of corruption perceptions by public buyers and suppliers in Russia during the COVID pandemic. We conduct an online list experiment among the market participants in three waves: before the pandemic spread, during the strict lockdown, and after some stabilization. The paper shows a gap in how the market participants blame their side on corruption in public procurement. It is negligible before the COVID pandemic and significantly enlarges with the progress of the pandemic. We find that buyers’ perception of corruption among buyers is lower when the number of officially published new COVID cases is high. However, suppliers’ perception of corruption among suppliers is significantly higher when the excess deaths are high. These results indicate the changes in how market participants comprehend what interactions are corrupt. Some informal practices of buyers, which were forbidden before the COVID pandemic, are not perceived as abuse anymore. Suppliers, observing these revealed informal practices and becoming more dependent on public demand during the COVID pandemic, believe in the growth of corruption among suppliers.

Autocratic Governors in Public Procurement, European Journal of Political Economy, 2020, 61, 1-18, doi: 10.1016/j.ejpoleco.2019.101825 (with Daniil Esaulov).

The personal role of sub-national rulers is crucial for regional development in countries with weak institutions. This paper studies the impact of regional governors’ tenure in office and their local ties on procurement performance in Russia. To identify the causal effect, we construct instruments for governor’s tenure by exploiting the regional vote share of the ruling party in past parliament elections. We find evidence that governors who do not have pre-governing local ties in the region (outsiders) demonstrate predatory behaviour compared to governors with local ties (insiders). Namely, governors-outsiders restrict the competition at awarding stage significantly more than governors-insiders. Moreover, for governors-outsiders, this restriction becomes stronger with tenure in office, while governors-insiders do not demonstrate such a negative tenure effect. We argue that this restriction of competition by governors-outsiders cannot be explained by the intention of better contracts execution: the delays in execution and the probability of contract termination either increase or keep stable with tenure for governors-outsiders and these outcomes decrease with tenure for governors-insiders.

‘Sweet Deals’: State-owned Enterprises, Corruption and Repeated Contracts in Public Procurement, Economic Systems, 2017, 41(1), 52–67. doi: 10.1016/j.ecosys.2016.12.002 (with Andrei Yakovlev and Alexandra Kuznetsova).

We show how a price analysis of stable relations between customer and supplier in the public procurement of homogeneous goods can help differentiate opportunistic from honest behaviour among economic agents. We consider two types of stable relations: repeated procurements and connections based on the state ownership of suppliers. On the basis of a large dataset on the procurement of granulated sugar in Russia from 2011 to 2013, we find that for private suppliers, prices of repeated contracts were lower compared to one-time deals when procured through more transparent procedures and higher when procured through non-transparent procedures. For non-transparent procedures, we observe significant overpricing of contracts with state-owned suppliers compared to private suppliers, especially in the case of repeated contracts, whereas for competitive e-auctions, there is only a small difference between the contract prices of state-owned suppliers and private suppliers.

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