Identity and Ownership in Government Contracting

Abstract

As the volume of government contracting increases, so does the importance of monitoring government contractors to guard against market concentration, rent seeking and conflict of interest. Doing so, however, is impossible without knowing the identity and organizational structure of contractors. At present the government does not collect information on organizational structure. Using STATA to analyze data from a new government database, this paper takes a first look at contractor organizational structure. The complexity of the structures makes clear that better data are needed if the government and the public are to be able to hold contractors accountable.

Keywords: contracting, organizational conflict of interest, campaign finance, social network analysis

JEL Classification: H57, L22