D73 - Bureaucracy; Administrative Processes in Public Organizations; CorruptionReturn

This paper examines the fines for administrative offences in public procurement to consider whether their extent can be explained using an econometric approach. These fines, in the Czech Republic, are imposed by the Office for the Protection of Competition. The Public Procurement Act specifies only the maximal level of the fine, however, its actual value depends on the discretion of the Office. This paper analyses the decisions of the Office since 2010 and using multiple linear regression tries to explain the amount of fines. The study examines the significance of parameters such as the size of the contracting authority, the type of award procedure, the number of administrative offences and their nature or the value of the procurement. Moreover, the study identifies which of the parameters are the best to estimate the fines and what accuracy this model achieves.

The aim of this paper is to reveal whether there is a relation between public procurement and the election cycle in Prague. The examined data cover the period from 2005 to 2011. Two hypotheses have been set in order to discover whether there is such a relation. The first one postulates that public procurement is used for construction, wellvisible investment, so as to increase the probability of being re-elected. The second hypothesis marks the effort of politicians to maximise their own benefits until the end of their electoral term as the main reason for contracting public procurement. The hypotheses are proven with the number of public procurement projects, the total amount of money spent on public procurement in a particular term, the average amount of bids and the relation between the final and expected price. Regression analysis was used as the tool for verification. The result is that it is possible to find such a relation dependence of supplies and services and the election cycle in Prague.

The economic theory of the last decades deals with how certain models of institutions and incentives could improve the coordination of individual actions in society. Setting rules regulating relationships between economic agents is considered as the key requirement of such coordination. Nevertheless, the rule has no impact if it is not enforced. Gary Becker and George Stigler suggest a solution that could significantly contribute to efficiency in law enforcement. Gordon Tullock does not agree with their idea. The aim of the paper is to analyze their arguments and to answer the question: "Is Becker's and Stigler's recommendation a good way to efficiency in law enforcement?" The discussion presented in this paper suggests that Gary Becker's and George Stigler's proposal might improve efficiency in law enforcement if certain institutional conditions are assumed. Nevertheless, Gordon Tullock assumes different institutional conditions; therefore, he rejects Gary Becker's and George Stigler's proposal.