Election cycles in European public procurement

Annika Havlik, Friedrich Heinemann and Justus Nover

No 21-079, ZEW Discussion Papers from ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research

Abstract: This paper studies the existence of election cycles in public procurement in the European Union for the national level. We analyze different steps along the procurement process, namely the publication of the contract notice, the awarding of the contract, and the project completion. We point out how these steps should differ in their potential to address specific types of voters. We argue that the award provides politicians with a particularly appealing opportunity. It allows them to please the award-winning firms' stakeholders and the spending decision becomes binding and credible also from the perspective of forward-looking voters. We find robust evidence for electioneering in contract notices and awards prior to national parliamentary elections. The effect in contract awards is particularly strong for certain sub-categories like education and is more pronounced for visible projects.

Keywords: Forward-looking voters; political budget cycles; retrospective voting; Tenders Electronic Daily (TED) (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D72 D73 H57 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm, nep-pol and nep-ppm
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Election Cycles in European Public Procurement (2021)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:zewdip:21079

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