This paper shows how favoritism in public procurement can emerge despite the use of rigid procedures for awarding contracts and of transparent criteria for allowing firms to bid. The paper analyzes data on the awarding of public works in Italy to illustrate how differences in fine regulation...

The presence of a pervasive and evolving local regulation in the Italian public procurement offers a way to study the effects of a vast series of reforms involving firms qualifications, contracts awarding and subcontracting. This paper documents the legal aspects of these local regulations and,...

Despite successive reforms, public procurement in Italy is still highly fragmented and vulnerable to collusion, corruption and ex-post renegotiation. Other defects are found in the planning stages of the works. These problems are due in part to the regulations on the awarding of public works...

There has been a significant increase in project financing in the public sector in Europe in the past decade, benefiting the implementation of infrastructure projects. In Italy, project financing is still much more limited than in such countries as Spain and the UK: the projects funded are...

In this paper we investigate the governance structure of Italian pensions funds. First, we conduct a brief but critical review of the theoretical and empirical literature, in order to identify the areas where major improvements are necessary: a) the skills and competence of the trustees; b) the...

Based on the economic literature and international comparison, the paper examines the adequacy of the terms of Italian project financing contracts to build and operate public works, and identifies potential areas for improvement. We analyze the main contractual content of the public works...

The article surveys the main actions, either defined by social partners or by government intervention, which have attempted to encourage firm-level bargaining decentralization in recent years. The overall structure and the relative importance of different levels of bargaining have not however...

Italy is not immune from the long term trend towards greater bargaining decentralization under way in Western Europe. The article surveys the main actions undertaken in recent years, either by social partners or by government intervention, in order to reduce the obstacles to this process,...

When bids do not represent binding commitments, the use of a first price sealed bid auction favors those bidders who are less penalized from reneging on their bids. These bidders are the most likely to win but also the most likely to default on their bid. In this paper I study theoretically two...