We provide a general framework in which to determine the optimal penalty fee inducing the contractor to respect the contracted delivery date in public procurement contracts (PPCs). We do this by developing a real option model that enables us to investigate the contractor's value of investment...

This paper provides a general framework to determine the optimal penalty fee to induce a contractor to respect the contracted delivery date in public procurement contracts (PPCs). We did this by i) developing a real option model to evaluate the investment timing flexibility that the inclusion of...

This paper considers the supplier's strategic delivery lead time in a public procurement setting as the result of the firm's opportunistic behaviour on the optimal investment timing. In the presence of uncertainty on construction costs, we model the supplier's option to defer the contract's...

Evidence from ongoing procurement and concession contracts shows that time overruns are widespread. Two key elements, among others, can affect the delays in the execution of the contracts: a) uncertainty over production costs; b) inefficiency in the judicial system. In this article we summarize...

We study differently framed incentives in dynamic laboratory buyer-seller relationships with multi-tasking and endogenous matching. The experimental design tries to mitigate the role of social preferences and intrinsic motivation. Absent explicit incentives, effort is low in both tasks. Their...

Using a dataset of medical devices purchased by Italian Public Buyers (PBs), for each purchase, we measure the difference between each item's price and its marginal cost. We define PBs' ability in purchasing as PBs' fixed effect (FE) on that difference. We find that average prices vary...