The fundamental paradigm shift from traditional value chains to agile service value networks implies new economic and organizational challenges. As coordination mechanisms, auctions have proven to perform quite well in situations where intangible and heterogeneous goods are traded. Nevertheless,...

Theoretical models of information asymmetry have identified a trade-off between the desire to learn and the desire to prevent an opponent from learning private information. This paper reports a laboratory experiment that investigates if actual bidders account for this trade-off, using a...

We propose a new procurement procedure which allocates shares of the total amount to be procured depending on the bids of suppliers. Among the properties of the mechanism are: (i) Bidders have an incentive to participate in the procurement procedure, as equilibrium payos are strictly positive....

This paper considers the auctioning of an indivisible project among several suppliers who hold private information about their own efficiency type. Both quality and price need to be determined. Different from scoring auctions, we present a new method, i.e., contingent payment auction mechanism...

Using nonparametric estimation techniques adapted from Guerre et al. [2000], we infer cost distributions and informational rents, from 666 snow removal contracts offered for tender by the City of Montreal. Our results are compatible with standard received theory of competitive auctions: there is...

We investigate the relationship between the time politicians stay in office and the functioning of public procurement. To this purpose, we collect a data set on the Italian municipal governments and all the procurement auctions they administered between 2000 and 2005. Identification is achieved...

Theoretical models of information asymmetry have identied a tradeoff between the desire to learn and the desire to prevent an opponent from learning private information. This paper reports a laboratory experiment that investigates if actual bidders account for this tradeoff, using a sequential...

Using nonparametric estimation techniques adapted from Guerre et al. [2000], we infer cost distributions and informational rents, from 666 snow removal contracts offered for tender by the City of Montreal. Our results are compatible with standard received theory of competitive auctions: there is...