Infrastructure costs in the United States are high and rising. The procurement process is one potential cost driver. In this paper we conduct a survey of procurement practices across the 50 states. We survey both employees at each state department of transportation (DOT) and the road builders...

Incarcerated individuals in the U.S. purchase goods and services from monopoly vendors selected by their correctional authority. We study telecommunications, which have come under bipartisan scrutiny due to the high prices inmates pay for phone calls. Prospective providers are evaluated on their...

We study highway procurement in Texas during the Great Recession and stimulus period, finding increased competition with more bidders and lower bids. We argue that the recession reduced opportunity costs, in part due to a slump in private-sector construction. We evaluate costs and efficiency by...

Liquidity management is key in industries with variable cash flows. We study how businesses in the highway construction industry manage cash flow by strategically bidding more on work with an earlier payout--a practice known as front-end loading. We find that small contractors, infrequent...

We propose an equilibrium theory of data-driven antitrust oversight in which regulators launch investigations on the basis of suspicious bidding patterns and cartels can adapt to the statistical screens used by regulators. We emphasize the use of asymptotically safe tests, i.e. tests that are...

We examine cost-plus lagged-price reimbursement contracts, focusing on Medicare Part B's payment for physician-administered drugs. Our theoretical model shows that lagged-price reimbursement can raise launch prices but lower prices in later periods. While previous research showed Part B...

This paper examines the tradeoffs of monitoring for wasteful public spending. By penalizing unnecessary spending, monitoring improves the quality of public expenditure and incentivizes firms to invest in compliance technology. I study a large Medicare program that monitored for unnecessary...

How costly is the misallocation of production that we might expect to result from distortions such as market power, incomplete contracts, taxes, regulations, or corruption? This paper develops new tools for the study of misallocation that place minimal assumptions on firms' underlying...

Over the last decade, the U.S. Medicare program has added new billing codes to enhance the financial rewards for Chronic Care Management and Transitional Care Management. We analyze the effects of introducing these new billing codes. First, we provide evidence on the adoption of the new codes by...

The latest resurgence in the U.S. of policies aimed at reducing imports and bolstering domestic production has included the expansion of Buy American provisions. While some of these are new and untested, in this paper we evaluate long-standing procurement limitations on the purchase of foreign...