Corruption, accountability, and discretion of procurement officials: An analysis of selection Preferences for...

Performance-based evaluation criteria (PBEC) are vital for selecting high-quality suppliers and achieving a PPP procurement performance. Through theoretical and institutional analysis, we found that the selection of PBEC centered on operations depends on the discretion of the purchaser. However, in an emerging and transforming PPP market, many factors have affected the scientific exercise of the purchaser's discretion. This means that PPP projects must focus on construction and neglect operation in a certain period. Furthermore, to explore the influencing factors of the definition of PBEC, based on data of 9082 PPP projects between 2009 and 2021 in China, we adopted Ordinary Least Squares to empirically analyze two factors that influence the level of attention that is paid to the operation plan: corruption and accountability. The results indicate that the attention paid to the operation plan significantly increased with the reduction in corruption and the improvement in accountability. Robustness tests demonstrate the robustness of the results. A further heterogeneity analysis shows that the above factors have a more significant impact on non-state demonstration projects and projects with large investments. The contributions of this study are as follows: (1) Theoretically, this paper supplements the relevant research on evaluation criteria and provides new evidence on the impact of corruption and accountability on the defining PBEC. (2) Institutionally, it provides specific paths to limit the discretion of procurement officials when defining evaluation criteria. (3) In practice, it helps procurement officials to scientifically define PBEC and promote the realization of procurement performance.