ABSTRACT

Government contracting is crucial for defining the quality of government and public services because it amounts to about 29% of government spending. However, regional quality of government indicators, especially for public spending, are largely missing. We assess the quality of public spending by transparency, competition, efficiency and corruption using a novel database of 4 million contracts from the EU-28 between 2006 and 2015. We find that public spending quality is associated with gross domestic product (GDP)/capita, the European quality of government index (EQI) and public sector meritocracy. We confirm large within-country regional variations, but also find considerable change over time: the steady deterioration of performance in old European Union member states.

摘要

政府合同对于定义政府和公共服务的质量至关重要，因为它约占政府支出的 29%。然而，政府指标的区域质量，尤其是公共支出，在很大程度上缺失。我们使用包含 2006 年至 2015 年间来自欧盟 28 国的 400 万份合同的新数据库，通过透明度、竞争、效率和腐败来评估公共支出的质量。我们发现公共支出质量与国内生产总值 (GDP)/人均有关、欧洲政府质量指数 (EQI) 和公共部门精英管理。我们确认了国家内部的区域差异很大，但也发现了随着时间的推移发生了相当大的变化：旧欧盟成员国的表现不断恶化。