E-procurement and firm corruption to secure public contracts: The moderating role of governance institutions and supranational support

International audienceThis paper investigates the effects of e-procurement on firm corruption to secure public contracts, highlighting the moderating roles of the quality of governance institutions and supranational support in that relationship. Taking transaction cost economics as our theoretical lens, and building on a sample of 8,373 firms in 72 countries from 2008 to 2019, we find that the adoption of an e-procurement system in fact reduces firm corruption. However, this effect is only unveiled once one accounts in the analysis for the quality of country-level governance institutions, which also makes the relationship stronger. We also find an eprocurement system only to effectively address firm corruption when it benefits from supranational support. The study contributes to the ongoing academic debate on the impact of digitalization on corruption