Tag: heterogeneity
Buyer Heterogeneity in Public Procurement
Authors: Elena Paltseva and Giancarlo Spagnolo, SITE.
We show that different types of contracting authorities exhibit rather different behavior in public procurement. In particular, in Sweden strategic bunching below the EU threshold is only observed for a certain type of authorities. The identity of the strategically behaving group is also non-uniform across different types of procurement contracts or geographic localities. Similarly, in Italy’s public works procurement only a specific type of public buyer seems related to bunching below the threshold. This suggests that the type of public buyer, and associated differences in incentives and outcomes, should be taken into consideration in designing procurement regulation and more general policy-making.