6 - Public Procurement’s Check on Fiscal Expansion

Summary

Chapter 6 conducts a comparative case study analysis across ?ve presidential administrations in two countries (Argentina and Brazil) using national-level government policies as the unit of analysis. By varying exposure to market-oriented ?nancing over time, it examines how Chinese state-backed ?nancing compares with private-market ?nancing when it is channeled to corporate enterprises through public tender.A robust private sector and strong constitutional commitment to public procurement tend to increase the resiliency and efficacy of public procurement laws . Under these conditions,public procurements laws compel Chinese policy banks to operate through government concessions rather than direct state-to-state lending, leaving national governments with little additional fiscal space. They instead pursue policy conditionality (i.e. fiscal discipline) to improve their sovereign credit standing and ultimately to lower their project financing costs.