Politician–manager relationship, procurement decisions, and corruption risk in local governments

This study combines agency and patronage theories to explore how the nature of local governing bodies–elected politicians or centrally appointed commissioners–influences managerial decisions and related corruption risks in public procurement. Agency theory suggests that discretion and weak oversight allow managers to exploit their expertise for personal gain, while patronage theory highlights how political actors may pressure managers to favour local elites. Analysing 16,953 procurement procedures from Italian municipalities, we applied multilevel mixed-effects and panel logistic regression models to compare decision-making under governing bodies having different nature. Results show that managers make more discretionary–and potentially more corruption-prone–procurement decisions under elected officials than under appointed commissioners. These findings highlight the dual risks of expertise asymmetry and political influence in high-discretion settings. Effective mechanisms are essential to prevent misuse and ensure discretion serves the public interest.