Cross-country variability in regulatory frameworks, industrial policy, physician/pharmacy autonomy, brand/generic distinctions, and in the practice of medicine contributes to ambiguous interpretations of pharmaceutical cost comparisons. Here we report cross-country comparisons that: (i) focus on...

A set-aside restricts participation in procurement contests to targeted firms. Despite being widely used, its effects on actual competition and contract outcomes are ambiguous. We pool a decade of US federal procurement data to shed light on this empirical question using a two-stage approach. To...

Public spending (i.e., 'G') enables governments to fulfill their fiscal policies. This paper takes a micro perspective and quantifies the impact of procurement spending - a specific component of G - on firm survival. We find that firms that receive public contracts survive longer, ceteris...

We investigate the impact of public procurement spending on business survival. Using Italy as a laboratory, we construct a large-scale dataset on firms–covering balance-sheet, income-statement, and administrative records–and match it with public contract data. Employing a regression...

Favouritism is very common in the countries of the Middle East and North Africa, where it is usually referred to as "wasta" (connection). The study by Loewe et al. analyses the impact of wasta on the business climate. It presents the results of extensive empirical research conducted in Jordan...

I document a beneficial effect of the government's participation in product markets. Exploiting the 2008-09 financial crisis as a natural experiment, I show that federal procurement contracts insulate government contractors' performance from the crisis. By 2009, government contractors had 19%...

Public spending (i.e., “G”) enables governments to fulfill their fiscal policies. This paper takes a micro perspective and quantifies the impact of procurement spending - a specific component of G - on firm survival. We find that firms that receive public contracts survive longer, ceteris...

A set-aside restricts participation in procurement contests to targeted firms. Despite being widely used, its effects on actual competition and contract outcomes are ambiguous. We pool a decade of US federal procurement data to shed light on this empirical question using a two-stage approach. To...

This article discusses how favoritism affects the business climate. It is based on research conducted in Jordan. Jordan’s business climate is mediocre in international and regional comparison, which is not sufficient in light of the country’s small domestic market. Business people consider...

Public procurement accounts for one third of government spending. In this paper, I document a new mechanism through which government procurement promotes firm growth: firms use procurement contracts to increase the amount of cash-flow based lending. I use Portuguese administrative data over...