The EU procurement directives stipulate that public contracts are awarded to the lowest bidder or to the bidder with the economically most advantageous offer; the latter requiring that a scoring rule must be specified. We provide a simple theoretical framework for tender evaluation and discuss...

We provide novel stylized facts about competition, bidding, entry and bidders across a wide spectrum of public procurement auctions using comprehensive and rich Finnish data. Competition for publicly procured contracts is relatively low with a median bidder count of two (three conditional on...

This paper analyzes how features of the procurement system laid down by the EU Procurement Directives affect the analysis of competition in public procurement markets. It presents the bidding systems allowed under the EU rules and provides a general framework to assess competition concerns for...

Set aside procedures in public procurement are those reserved for a sub-class of bidders, such as small and medium enterprises (SMEs) only, as a tool of the preferential treatment of SMEs by many governments. Prior studies and our results indicate these set-asides reduce costs of government...

This paper represents one of the first attempts to benchmarking public procurement practices for the same product categories. Questionnaires from European procurement agencies provide several insights on procurement contest design and on participation and competition patterns of two important...

Public procurement and competition law are both important fields of EU law and policy, intimately intertwined in the creation of the internal market. Hitherto their close connection has been noted, but not closely examined. Th is work is the most comprehensive attempt to date to explain the many...