We present evidence of how policies that create opportunities to avoid open competition in procurement lead to the manipulation of procurement values. We exploit a policy reform in which public bodies were given the autonomy to preselect potential contractors below newly defined discretionary thresholds. Manipulation is revealed through bunching of procurements just below the thresholds in construction works and services, and to a lesser degree, in goods. Among manipulated contracts, we document a threefold increase in the probability that procurements are allocated to anonymous firms, which can hide their owners. This sorting violates assumptions behind regression-discontinuity designs. (JEL D73, D86, H57, K23, L74)

I investigate the effect of sickness absence reform in the Czech Republic, which reduced benefits paid during the first three days of sickness absence to zero. I find a substantial decrease in the incidence of sickness absence, which is about 15 percent of the pre‐reform mean. I find that workers in occupations with high flexibility and fewer routine tasks are more likely to reduce their sickness absences.

Projekt je financován Evropským sociálním fondem, rozpočtem hl. města Prahy a státním rozpočtem ISBN 978-80-7343-201-0 (Univerzita Karlova. Centrum pro ekonomický výzkum a doktorské studium) ISBN 978-80-7344-190-6 (Národohospodářský ústav AV ČR, v.v.i.

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