The first part of the paper reports the results from a sequence of laboratory experiments comparing the bidding behavior for multiple contracts in three different sealed bid auction mechanisms; first-price simultaneous, first-price sequential and first-price combinatorial bidding. The design of...

The risks of corruption in public sector procurements are higher due to larger sizes of contracts involved. Procurement processes of Indian public organizations have gradually been strengthened over the years, under prodding of oversight bodies, to incorporate most of the methods for preventing...

Under recurrent procurement, the awarding of a contract to a firm may put it in an advantageous position in future tenders, which may reduce competition over time. The objective of this paper is to study the dynamics of competition for tendered contracts, focusing on factors that may generate...

Deadlines and penalties are widely used to incentivize effort. We model how these incentive contracts affect the work rate and time taken in a procurement setting, characterizing the efficient contract design. Using new micro-level data on Minnesota highway construction contracts that includes...

Indian Railways is one of the world's largest public sector organizations. Its network, traffic, organization and extent of vertical integration are gigantic. This paper undertakes a critical examination of its procurement process to understand the procedures and institutional mechanisms which...

This paper has adopted the exploratory case study method of analyzing a few recent cases of public procurement irregularities on Indian Railways documented by the vigilance departments and the CAG available in public domain to inquire into the following issues: (a) how do irregularities and...

Public agencies rely on two key modes to procure goods and services: auctions and direct negotiations. The relative advantages of these two modes are still imperfectly understood. This paper therefore studies public procurement of regional passenger railway services in Germany, where regional...

The competitive bid process used by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to procure food supplies and transportation services for humanitarian food aid is subject to bidder gaming that can increase prices and deter competition. Additionally, suppliers and carriers are matched after bid...

This paper studies the role of communication and reputation in market interactions using data from online procurement auctions. Not only positive reputation ratings but also engaging in communication increases a bidder’s probability of winning the auction. Messages are primarily used to reduce...