E-procurement is widely advocated as an effective tool to promote the participation of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) as well as micro enterprises in the public procurement market. However, little evidence exists as to what factors may influence the allocation of contracts to differently...

While e-procurement is widely advocated as an effective tool to promote participation of SMEs in public procurement markets, little evidence exists as to what factors may influence the allocation of contracts to differently sized firms. We analyze transactions – below the EU-thresholds –...

Although it is widely recognized that public procurement may act as a “pull” mechanism for development and employment, serious concerns are constantly voiced as to the friendliness of public procurement processes towards small and medium enterprises (SMEs), arguably the most vital sector of...

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...

Major government or public procurements directly and indirectly impact a country's economy, infrastructure, industry base and even security. Foreign competition has the potential of reducing governments' procuring costs. However, this will hurt local industries and employment. Hence, governments...

While e-procurement is widely advocated as an effective tool to promote participation of SMEs in public procurement markets, little evidence exists as to what factors may influence the allocation of contracts to differently sized firms. We analyze transactions – below the EU-thresholds –...

Small business size standards increased considerably in the United States since 2002. Following their staggered introduction across industries, we find lower shares of small businesses in industry establishments and employment and declines in job creation and business formation. Consequently,...

This paper models the interactions between the defense needs of the USA and Western Europe, which produce several heterogeneous defense goods, and the defense industry market structure. The results show that net defense costs of the USA and Europe are lower when the number of defense firms in...

The creation of tax-free health savings accounts presents a new opportunity to reduce the distortions created by federal tax preferences for health-related expenditures, and ultimately help eliminate those distortions. This paper proposes changes to current law that would allow most workers to...

Effective in 2000, Medicare’s Outpatient Prospective Payment System (OPPS) sets pre-determined reimbursement rates for hospital outpatient services, replacing the prior costbased methods of reimbursement. Using Florida outpatient discharge data, we study the effect of OPPS on hospital...