Corruption and marketization

Formal and informal rules in Chinese public procurement

Bibliographic Data

ID6377486
AuthorsTing Gong (0000-0001-9927-886X), Na Zhou (0000-0002-8125-8702)
Year2015
Volume9
Issue1
Pages63-76
Publication date2015-03-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueRegulation & Governance (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1748-5983 • E-ISSN: 1748-5991
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/rego.12054
OpenAlexW1900988406
LanguageEN
Citations received19
References cited34

The relationship between market liberalization and corruption has attracted scholarly attention in recent years. Conventional wisdom holds that increased economic marketization reduces corruption. China, however, provides evidence to the contrary; corruption has grown as its market‐oriented reforms progress. This paradoxical co‐development of the market and corruption begs the intriguing questions of how corruption has survived marketization and what explains the failure of government regulation. Extending the conceptual framework of institutional theory about formal and informal rules, and using public procurement in China as an example, this article shows that formal tendering rules and regulations may be modified, circumvented, or replaced by informal ones which facilitate corruption. The article identifies four corruption schemes through which procurement actors may distort competition processes and mechanisms under the guise of formal rules. Consequently, public procurement in China displays the structural outlook of market competition, but not its essential substance

Business · Competition (biology · Economic system · Economics · Government (linguistics · Language change · Liberalization · Market economy · Marketization · Political science · Procurement · Public economics · Corruption and Economic Development · Law · Law, Economics, and Judicial Systems · Legal principles and applications · Marketing

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