Transparency and Digital Government: The Impact of COMPR.AR in Argentina

Digital government and transparency regulations initiatives have become popular among policymakers in recent years; however the literature on causal links between digitization and transparency is scarce. This paper seeks to shed some light on the effectiveness of digitization to promote transparency by studying the effects of the implementation of the e-procurement platform COMPR.AR in Argentina. This study relies on a difference-indifferences identification strategy to show that the adoption of COMPR.AR decreased the duration of procurement processes and the prices paid by public bodies on various items analyzed. The findings also suggest that the platform increased the number of bidders involved in public procurement processes. Efficiency, transparency and the availability of information were enhanced as a result of the adoption of digital technologies.