Corruption and Firm Behavior in Kenya's Public Procurement Auctions

This project seeks to study corruption in Kenya’s public procurement, as well as its effects on frm behavior (e.g., participation and bidding), and procurement outcomes (e.g., project
costs and execution delays). To study this topic, the research team plans to combine an experimental intervention that generates exogenous variation in the ability of procurement officials to act for private gain, with a structural model of firms participating and bidding in public procurement auctions. At this preliminary stage, the research team is working on building partnerships with the relevant agencies and identifying an experimental intervention that is feasible and potentially effective at curbing malfeasance by procurement officials. With the GI Travel/Proposal Development Grant, the research team would travel to several locations in Kenya to meet with government partners, and to organize focus groups with key stakeholders including procurement auditors, firms that participate in procurement, and professional associations. Through these meetings and focus groups, the objective of the trip would be to gather enough context to design experimental intervention to be subsequently piloted. The primary partner for this study is the Kenya Public Procurement Regulatory Authority (PPRA), responsible for setting rules and monitoring public procurement in Kenya. A co-PI of the project is currently Deputy Director of Strategy & Planning of PPRA. Other government partners the team plans to add in the future include the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC), which performs audits of ongoing procurement projects, and the Kenya Revenue Authority
(KRA), which holds firm-to-firm transaction-level data.