Can red flag indicators, typically used to monitor corruption risks in public procurement, also help assess the systemic effects of regulatory reform?
Abstract: This research explores their potential repurposing in the context of the 2023 Italian Public Procurement Code, a major policy intervention designed to simplify procedures, enhance efficiency, and promote results-oriented public action.
The aim is to investigate whether and how red flags may serve not only as preventive tools but also as signals of change in administrative behaviour following a reform. A historical and data-driven approach is therefore adopted, relying on administrative data from the Italian National Database of Public Contracts (BDNCP) to analyse trends immediately before and after the reform.
Beyond this empirical focus, the study contributes to the broader methodological debate on how to evaluate the effects of systemic reforms in settings where simplification and administrative trust are key policy drivers. It raises the question of how such shifts might affect not only the behaviour of public actors, but also the production, structure, and interpretation of the data and indicators used to assess their actions.