Determinants of Corruption in Auctions and the Self-Perpetuation of Political Networks

Saucedo Cepeda, Abraham

Determinants of Corruption in Auctions and the Self-Perpetuation of Political Networks

dc.contributor.advisor	Oxoby, Robert J.
dc.contributor.author	Saucedo Cepeda, Abraham
dc.contributor.committeemember	Tombe, Trevor
dc.contributor.committeemember	Laliberte, Jean-William
dc.contributor.committeemember	Magesan, Arvind Nathan
dc.contributor.committeemember	Franceschet, Susan
dc.contributor.committeemember	Ferraz, Claudio
dc.contributor.committeemember	Oxoby, Robert J.
dc.date	2024-02
dc.date.accessioned	2024-01-09T22:50:28Z
dc.date.available	2024-01-09T22:50:28Z
dc.date.issued	2024-01
dc.description.abstract	This thesis is devoted to studying two different ways in which public power can be exploited for personal advantage to the detriment of society. The first involves a direct abuse of the public tender process when it is conducted through an auction. The second involves political elites and their tendency to attain and retain power by leveraging the boons of previously held government and political posts. The first chapter examines the role of auctioneers' payoff structure in determining their bribe solicitation preferences and the likelihood an auction is won by its highest-bidder. I conduct an auction experiment with bribery in which auctioneers' net-of-bribes payoffs depend on the size of the winning bid. When payoffs are highly dependent on winning bids auctioneers are less likely to solicit a bribe and more likely to choose the highest-bidder when requesting one. Therefore, aligning auctioneers' personal profit-maximization objectives with the desired outcome of the auction mechanism reduces the incidence and negative effects of bribery. The second chapter presents and describes a novel database of Mexican politicians who held public office between 1935 and 2009. The database includes data on politicians' educational backgrounds, elective and appointive positions in government, political party positions, special-interest positions, the private sector, and the military. It also contains information on documented personal family and social relationships of included individuals, which allows me to reconstruct political networks. For the third chapter I test the hypothesis of political elite self-perpetuation and present evidence this phenomenon involves political networks broader than families: The prominence of political and government posts a politician is able to attain increases with the prominence of positions previously held by that politician's relatives, but also those held by their friends and business and political associates. To establish the effect is causal, rather than the result of politically valuable resources and traits shared by network members, I use a peers-of-peers instrumental variables approach wherein I exploit the variation in political attainment of the friends and relatives of a politician's own friends and relatives.
dc.identifier.citation	Saucedo Cepeda, A. (2024). Determinants of corruption in auctions and the self-perpetuation of political networks (Doctoral thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca.
dc.identifier.uri	https://hdl.handle.net/1880/117917
dc.language.iso	en
dc.publisher.faculty	Graduate Studies
dc.publisher.institution	University of Calgary
dc.rights	University of Calgary graduate students retain copyright ownership and moral rights for their thesis. You may use this material in any way that is permitted by the Copyright Act or through licensing that has been assigned to the document. For uses that are not allowable under copyright legislation or licensing, you are required to seek permission.
dc.subject	Corruption
dc.subject	Auction
dc.subject	Bribery
dc.subject	Political Dynasties
dc.subject	Political Networks
dc.subject	Political Elites
dc.subject	Public Power
dc.subject.classification	Economics
dc.subject.classification	Public Administration
dc.subject.classification	Psychology--Behavioral
dc.subject.classification	Psychology--Experimental
dc.title	Determinants of Corruption in Auctions and the Self-Perpetuation of Political Networks
dc.type	doctoral thesis
thesis.degree.discipline	Economics
thesis.degree.grantor	University of Calgary
thesis.degree.name	Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
ucalgary.thesis.accesssetbystudent	I do not require a thesis withhold – my thesis will have open access and can be viewed and downloaded publicly as soon as possible.