In practical activity, the procurer can often decide to split the supply of a product in multiple contracts, or lots. This paper surveys some competitive tendering procedures for multiple contracts and discusses how the choice of the most appropriate format of competitive tendering for the...

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...

Reputational incentives may be a powerful mechanism for improving supplier performance and limiting the perverse effect of price competition on contract execution. We analyze a unique experiment run by a large utility company in Italy which introduced a new vendor rating system scoring its...