Tendering Design when Price and Quality Is Uncertain : Theory and Evidence from Public Procurement (original) (raw)

Tendering design when price and quality is uncertain

International Journal of Public Sector Management

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to analyze how local and central authorities choose between lowest price and more complex scoring rules when they design supplier-selection mechanisms for public procurements. Five hypotheses are tested: a high level of cost uncertainty and highly non-verifiable quality makes the use of the lowest-price supplier-selection method less likely. Organizational habits and transaction-cost considerations influence the choice of mechanism. Strong quality concerns make complex rules more likely. Design/methodology/approach The analysis departures from normative theory (rational choice) and is based on the regression analysis and survey data comprising a gross sample of 40 contracting authorities and detailed information about 651 procurements. Findings More complex scoring rules are used more often when the authority is uncertain about costs and about delivered quality. Authority effects are also found to directly and indirectly influence the choice of s...

Tender evaluation and supplier selection methods in public procurement

Journal of Purchasing and Supply Management, 2013

The EU procurement directives stipulate that public contracts be awarded to the lowest bidder or to the bidder with the economically most advantageous tender; the latter requiring that a scoring rule be specified. We provide a simple theoretical framework, based on standard microeconomic theory, for tender evaluation (scoring and weighing) and discuss the pros and cons of methods such as highest quality (beauty contest), lowest price and price-and-quality-based evaluations. We argue that the most common method, price-to-quality scoring, is inappropriate for several reasons. It is non-transparent, making accurate representation of the procurer's preferences difficult. It is often open to strategic manipulation, due to dependence on irrelevant alternatives, and it tends to impose particular and unjustified non-linearity in bid prices. The alternative quality-to-price scoring method, where money values are assigned to different quality levels, is a better alternative. However, when the cost of quality is relatively well-known and several providers can offer optimal quality, lowest price is the preferable supplier selection method, while beauty contests may be preferred when purchasing budgets are inflexible.

Incentives and award procedures: competitive tendering vs. negotiations in procurement

Handbook of Procurement, 2006

Should the buyer of a customized good use competitive bidding or negotiation to select a contractor? To shed light on this question, we offer a framework that first describes the buyer's choice of contracts, and then links this choice to the selection of competitive tendering or negotiations. The analysis suggests a number of possible limitations to the use of competitive tendering. These may perform poorly when projects are complex, contractual design is incomplete and there are few available bidders. Furthermore, competitive tendering may stifle communication between buyers and sellers, preventing the buyer from utilizing the contractor's expertise when designing the project. Implications of these results for procurement in the private and public sector are discussed. * This is a preliminary version of a future chapter to appear in Dimitri, Piga, and Spagnolo (Eds.) "Handbook of Procurement", forthcoming in Manufactured goods, such as computers, TVs and automobiles are mass produced, have standardized characteristics and are typically purchased at list price. Other goods, such as new buildings, fighter jets, custom software or consulting services are tailored to fit a procurer's specific and often unique needs. To procure these customized goods, the procurer hires a contractor who supplies the good according to a set of desired specifications. We call this the procurement problem.

Tender Evaluation and Award Methodologies in Public Procurement

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2000

The EU procurement directives stipulate that public contracts are awarded to the lowest bidder or to the bidder with the economically most advantageous offer; the latter requiring that a scoring rule must be specified. We provide a simple theoretical framework for tender evaluation and discuss the pros and cons of common scoring rules, e.g., highest quality (beauty contest) and price-and-quality-based evaluation. Some descriptive facts are presented for a sample of Swedish public procurements. We argue that the most common method, price-to-quality scoring, is flawed for several reasons. It is non-transparent, making accurate representation of the procurer's preferences difficult. It is often open to strategic manipulation, due to dependence on irrelevant alternatives, and it is unreasonably non-linear in bid prices. We prefer quality-to-price scoring, where money values are assigned to different quality levels. When the costs of quality are relatively well-known, however, lowest price is the preferable award criteria.

Discretion and Supplier Selection in Public Procurement

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2018

Public procurement outcomes depend on the ability of the procuring agency to select high-performing suppliers. Should public administrations be granted more or less discretion in their decision making? Using Italian data on municipal public works tendered in the period 2009-2013, we study how a reform extending the scope of bureaucrat discretion affects supplier selection. We find that the share of contracts awarded to firms having a local politician among its administrators or shareholders increases, while the (ex-ante) labor productivity of the winning firms decreases, thus suggesting a potential misallocation of public funds. These effects are concentrated among lower quality procurement agencies.

1 Discretion and Supplier Selection in Public Procurement

2018

Using Italian data on municipal public works tendered in the period 2009-2013, we study how a reform extending the scope of bureaucrat discretion affects supplier selection. We find that the share of contracts awarded to politically connected firms increases while the (ex-ante) labor productivity of the winning firm decreases, thus suggesting a potential misallocation of the public funds. These effects are concentrated among municipalities characterized by less competent politicians and bureaucrats and by higher levels of corruption. We also show that under broader discretion public agencies comply less frequently with transparency requirements. JEL codes: D72, D73, H57, P16. * We thank Giuliana Palumbo, Paolo Sestito and participants at the Bank of Italy internal seminars, the Petralia workshop, the Political Economy Workshop of Galatina Summer Meetings, the SIEP Annual Conference in Catania and the ISLE Annual Conference in Rome for their helpful comments, and Ivan Triglia for exc...

Auctions Versus Negotiations in Procurement: An Empirical Analysis

Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, 2009

Should the buyer of a customized good use competitive bidding or negotiation to select a contractor? To shed light on this question, we consider several possible determinants that may influence the choice of auctions versus negotiations. We then examine a comprehensive data set of private sector building contracts awarded in Northern California during the years 1995-2000. The analysis suggests a number of possible limitations to the use of auctions. Auctions may perform poorly when projects are complex, contractual design is incomplete and there are few available bidders. Furthermore, auctions may stifle communication between buyers and sellers, preventing the buyer from utilizing the contractor's expertise when designing the project. Some implications of these results for procurement in the public sector are discussed.

Procurement when price and quality matter

Rand Journal of Economics, 2010

A buyer seeks to procure a good characterized by its price and its quality from suppliers who have private information about their cost structure (fixed cost + marginal cost of providing quality). We solve for the optimal buying procedure, i.e. the procedure that maximizes the buyer's expected utility. We then use the optimal procedure as a theoretical and numerical benchmark to study practical and simple buying procedures such as scoring auctions and negotiation. Specifically, we derive the restrictions that these simpler procedures place on allocations and compare them with the optimal allocations to generate insights about the properties of these simpler procedures and identify environments where they are likely to do well. We also use the optimal procedure benchmark to compare the performance of these procedures numerically. We find that scoring auctions are able to extract a good proportion of the surplus from being a strategic buyer, that is, the difference between the expected revenue from the optimal mechanism and the efficient auction. Sequential procedures (to which many negotiation processes belong) do less well, and, in fact, often do worse than simply holding an efficient auction. In each case, we identify the underlying reason for these results.

Awarding Price, Contract Performance, and Bids Screening: Evidence from Procurement Auctions

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, Vol. 6, Iss. 1, pp. 108-132. , 2014

This paper presents evidence on the perverse trade-off that first price auctions induce between low prices at the awarding stage and poor ex post performance when bids are not binding commitments. By exploiting the different timing with which first price auctions were introduced in Italy to procure public works, this study finds that at least half of the cost savings from lower winning prices are lost because of ex post renegotiation. Screening the lowest price bid for its responsiveness prevents performance worsening but also reduces the initial cost savings by a third and induces delays in awarding the contract.