This paper analyzes the impact of the reserve price on participation and the degree of competition in competitive tenderingfor public contracts. Our approach aims at reconciling the most recent developments in auction theory with the more practicalissues arising in centralized public...

In this paper we try to construct an hypothesis as to why, as data seem to show, countries that adopt more "transparent procurement", as calculated by the share of tender advertised publicly, are also the ones where corruption is considered more pervasive. We describe an economy where in...

Procurement awarding mechanisms based on average price have been advocated to soften price competition and reduce cost overruns. We show that their theoretical support is shaky. When the bid closest to the average is awarded, firms submit identical bids, making the selection extremely costly and...

The number and the size of lots influence the degree of competition in a tendering procedure mainly through two channels, both related to the market structure: the number of participants and their bidding behaviour. This paper discusses the relation between lots, participation, competition and...