Procurement meets Causality: Unpacking a Procurement Upgrade
Overview
In Indonesia, a $70M five-year project by the Millennium Challenge Corporation modernized public procurement through staff training and new procurement policies. I worked on a study that quantified the behavioral impact of this project and looked at the association between political competition and adoption of procurement innovation.
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About 980 staff across dozens of procurement units from each major island were interviewed and surveyed. The study also analyzed procurement administrative data (e.g., time to procurement, percentage of on-time procurements) and subnational election data.
Analytical Approach
A difference-in-difference design was used to measure the change in perceptions and attitudes towards public procurement among procurement staff. This was complemented by an interrupted time-series design to identify changes in the quality of tender outcomes such as the number of bidders, and cost and time savings.
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Key Metrics
Procurement efficiency and quality, staff knowledge, perceptions on corruption, adherence to best practices in procurement, commitment to procurement career, tender outcomes (e.g., number of bidders, amount offered per tender, etc.)
My Role and Impact
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Created a learning resource for future procurement reform initiatives by delivering a report with key insights to stakeholders on what worked and did not work in procurement reform.
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Generated a public resource by co-authoring a peer-reviewed journal article on the impact of procurement reform and the association of procurement outcomes and subnational political competition.
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​Provided the research team with high-quality data by implementing rigorous data assurance protocols.
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Delivered key insights through survey data analysis.