A short note on the prisoner’s dilemma as applied to public procurement

The prisoner’s dilemma is sometimes invoked to describe the situation facing participants in tenders. Reasoning on the basis of the dilemma metaphor, it is contended that agreeing not to bribe public officials in order to win contracts (collaboration) leads to better outcomes than bribing (confrontation). Here it is argued that the prisoner’s dilemma does not correspond to an adequate metaphor for public tenders. Incidentally, it is also argued that the assumption that bribery financially harms participants, which stimulates the allusion to the prisoner’s dilemma in the first place, is arbitrary.