公共采购与企业：来自肯尼亚的证据

Public Procurement and Firms Evidence from Kenya Justice Tei MensahPeter Chacha WankuruBenard K. Kirui Africa RegionOffice of the Chief EconomistOctober 2025 Policy Research Working Paper11227 Abstract percent more. These effects are somewhat comparable tothe gains from joining a multinational supply chain. Ben-eficiary firms also expand their trading networks to otherprivate firms. Relaxing credit constraints and improvingresilience to shocks are likely operative channels of impact.These findings highlight the potential welfare gains fromimproving efficiency in public procurement. How important is government business to the private sectorin developing economies? This paper uses administrativetax data on firm-to-firm transactions in Kenya to exam-ine the effects of becoming a government contractor onfirm performance. Using an event study design, the paperdocuments significant gains from becoming a supplier toa government entity. Four years later, beneficiary firms expe-rience a 27 percent increase in productivity and employ 10 The Policy Research Working Paper Series disseminates the findings of work in progress to encourage the exchange of ideas about developmentissues. An objective of the series is to get the findings out quickly, even if the presentations are less than fully polished. The papers carry thenames of the authors and should be cited accordingly. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely thoseof the authors. They do not necessarily represent the views of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/World Bank andits affiliated organizations, or those of the Executive Directors of the World Bank or the governments they represent. Public Procurement and Firms: Evidence fromKenya* Justice Tei Mensah†Peter Chacha Wankuru‡Benard K. Kirui§ 1Introduction Government purchases of goods and services are sizable, accounting for approximately 12%of global GDP (Bosio et al., 2022). In many countries, government contracts are a primarychannel through which public funds flow to private firms, stimulating growth, jobs, andinnovation. However, the extent to which winning a government contract shapes the growthtrajectory of firms in developing countries is not well understood. At the same time, firms indeveloping countries, particularly in Africa, face significant hurdles to growth resulting froma mix of demand-and supply-side constraints (Atkin et al., 2017; Quinn and Woodruff, 2019;Verhoogen, 2023; Mensah, 2024). Thus, questions on the extent to which demand shocksinduced by government contracts affect firm performance deserve attention. In this paper, we leverage administrative microdata on firm-to-firm transactions in Kenya toexamine the extent to which winning a government contract affects firm performance andthe underlying mechanisms. Specifically, we ask two key questions: (i) Do firms that wina government contract perform better relative to their peers who do not? (ii) What are thechannels through which becoming a government contractor affects firm growth? Using an event study difference-in-difference (DID) design, we exploit staggered variationsin the transition to becoming a government contractor–the first time a firm develops a ser-ious trading relationship with a government agency as in Amiti et al. (2024)– to identify theimpact of the contract on firm outcomes. Essentially, we compare changes in the outcomesof firms that win a government contract with firms that do not before and after the start ofthe trading arrangement with a government agency. This relies on the assumption that ab-sent the assignment of a government contract, the performance of treated and control firmswould have evolved along a similar pattern. Our event study analysis supports this assump-tion.1To address concerns regarding selection into becoming a government contractor, wepresent additional analyses using a matched DID design and find similar results. We alsoprovide additional robustness tests to rule out other threats to our identification strategy,such as the definition of who becomes a government contractor and the role of COVID-19and associated fiscal stimulus in influencing our results. Five key findings emerge from our analysis. First, firms that sell to a government agency perform better relative to their counterparts who do not, and these effects persist even inthe medium term. We find that while treated and control firms experience similar trends inrevenue, treated firms experience a large and sustained increase in revenue relative to con-trol firms after becoming a supplier to government. Total firm sales (value added) increaseby 36% (23%) in the first year reaching 73% (36%) by the fourth year. Firm productivity alsoimproves: Value added (sales) per worker increases by 24% (35%) and 27% (56%) in the firstand fourth years, respectively. Second, we document positive labor market effects. Four years later, firms that win a gov-ernment contract em