Critics of prevailing wage laws claim that their elimination will cut total public construction costs by 15 to 25 percent. Justification for this assertion may be found in a 1983 study comparing the cost of public construction regulated by the Davis-Bacon Act with the cost of similar private...

This paper investigates differences in the bidding patterns of entrants and incumbents. We examine a comprehensive data set of Utah construction procurement auctions during the years 1969-2003. The analysis suggests that entrants bid more aggressively than incumbents for most contractor types...