Political Corruption, Campaign Finance, and Public Procurement in Brazil

Spring 2023 GGR Recipient

Beatriz Silva da Costa (Politics)

Brazil is known for bid rigging, that is a form of collusion, involving companies that should be genuinely competing to win a contract secretly conspiring to raise prices or lower the quality of offered goods or services during a bidding process. This preliminary research will focus on exploring and more fully if/how public procurements in Brazil can be used to reward campaign donations from firm donors. The summer of 2023 gives me the chance to interview bureaucrats that deal directly with public procurements in Brazil in order to better understand this phenomenon.