Participation of small businesses in the market for public contracts is widely recognized as a key policy issue. It is also commonly held that the adoption of e-procurement solutions can be effective in pursuing such an objective. To this end, we analyze the transactions completed in the period...

Competitive bidding (as auctions) is commonly used to procure goods and services. Public buyers are often mandated by law to adopt competitive procedures to ensure transparency and promote full competition. Recent theoretical literature, however, suggests that open competition can perform poorly...

Quality and suppliers performance are essential for procurement. This Paper analyses these important issues from two perspectives. The first part deals with the topic of contracting. It describes the features of some common types of contracts that the buyer may choose according to the...