Overpricing Analysis in Brazilian Public Bidding Items

Mariana O. Silva; Lucas G. L. Costa; Larissa D. Gomide; Guilherme Bezerra; Gabriel P. Oliveira; Michele A. Brandão; Anisio Lacerda; Gisele Pappa

doi:10.5753/jis.2024.3831

Authors

Mariana O. Silva Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0110-9924
Lucas G. L. Costa Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais https://orcid.org/0009-0002-8898-4237
Larissa D. Gomide Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais https://orcid.org/0009-0009-9690-7603
Guilherme Bezerra Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1979-1522
Gabriel P. Oliveira Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7210-6408
Michele A. Brandão Instituto Federal de Minas Gerais https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7808-9357
Anisio Lacerda Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2483-7572
Gisele Pappa Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0349-4494

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5753/jis.2024.3831

Keywords:

Overpricing, Public Bidding, Fraud, Methodology, Statistical, Purchase

Abstract

Analyzing overpricing in public bidding items is essential for government agencies to detect signs of fraud in acquiring public goods and services. In this context, this paper presents two main contributions: a methodology for processing and standardizing bid item descriptions and a statistical approach for overpricing detection using the interquartile range. We evaluated a comparative analysis of three distinct grouping strategies, each emphasizing different facets of the item description standardization process. Furthermore, to gauge the efficacy of both proposed approaches, we leveraged a ground-truth dataset for a thorough evaluation containing quantitative and qualitative analyses. Overall, our findings suggest that the evaluated strategies are promising for identifying potential irregularities within public bidding processes.

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