We consider a procurement problem in which the procurement agent is supposed to allocate the realization of a project according to a competitive mechanism that values bids in terms of the proposed price and quality. Potential bidders have private information about their production costs. Since...

We consider a procurement problem in which the procurement agent is supposed to allocate the realization of a project according to a competitive mechanism that values bids in terms of the proposed price and quality. Potential bidders have private information about their production costs. Since...

The frequent renegotiation of public contracts is variously attributed to collusion between officials and bidders, the desire to circumvent budgetary rules, and other factors. This column challenges the industrial organisation view of public contract renegotiation, showing that frequent...

Do public agents undertake socially inefficient activities to protect themselves? In politically contestable markets, part of the lack of flexibility in the design and implementation of the public procurement process reflects public agents' risk adaptations to limit the political hazards from...

This paper analyzes a procurement setting with two identical firms and stochasticinnovations. In contrast to the previous literature, I show that a procurer who cannot charge entry fees may prefer a fixed-prize tournament to a first-price auction since holding an auction may leave higher rents...

Discriminatory programs that favor local and small firms in government procurement are common in many countries. This paper studies the long-run impact of procurement discrimination on market structure and future competition in industries where learning-by-doing makes incumbent firms more...

We consider innovation contests for the procurement of an innovation under moral hazard and adverse selection. Innovators have private information about their abilities, and choose unobservable effort in order to produce innovations of random quality. Innovation quality is not contractible. We...

Procuring authorities frequently use screening in order to mitigate risky bids. This study estimates the effect of bid screening and litigation on entry and bidding using a unique data set on highway construction procurement auctions in Poland. The market exhibits a screening method that ex...

A seminal result in the theory of competitive bidding holds that the buyer can lower the expected awarding price of a procurement contract by setting a reserve price below her opportunity cost for realizing the project. In this paper, we first provide a non-technical explanation for this result,...

Division in lots is one of the procurer's most crucial decisions. The number and the size of lots directly influences competition in the tendering process and thereby the procurer's budget and the quality of supply. This paper focuses on the effects the division of procurements into multiple...