Auctions with endogenous participation and quality thresholds : evidence from ODA infrastructure procurement

Infrastructure projects are often technically complicated and highly customized. Therefore, procurement competition tends to be limited. Competition is the single most important factor toward auction efficiency and anti-corruption. However, the degree of competition realized is closely related to bidders'entry decision and the auctioneer's decision on how to assess technical attributes in the bid evaluation process. This paper estimates the interactive effects among quality, entry, and competition. With data on procurement auctions for electricity projects in developing countries, it is found that large electricity works are by nature costly and can attract only a few participants. The limited competition would raise government procurement costs. In addition, high technical requirements are likely to be imposed for these large-scale projects, which will in turn add extra costs for the better quality of works and further limit bidder participation. The evidence suggests that quality is of particular importance in large infrastructure projects and auctioneers cannot easily substitute price for quality.Government Procurement,Investment and Investment Climate,E-Business,Markets and Market Access,Economic Theory&Research

The German UMTS Design: Insights From Multi-Object Auction Theory

We briefly survey several insights about value and revenue maximization in multi-object auctions and apply them to the German (and Austrian) UMTS auction. In particular, we discuss in detail the exposure probelm that caused firms in Germany to pay almost Euro 20 billion for nothing.

Bidding Markets

The existence of a ‘bidding market’ is commonly cited as a reason to tolerate the creation or maintenance of highly concentrated markets. We discuss three erroneous arguments to that effect: the ‘consultants’ fallacy’ that ‘market power is impossible’, the ‘academics’ fallacy’ that (often) ‘market power does not matter’, and the ‘regulators’ fallacy’ that ‘intervention against pernicious market power is unnecessary’, in markets characterized by auctions or bidding processes. Furthermore we argue that the term ‘bidding market’ as it is widely used in antitrust is unhelpful or misleading. Auctions and bidding processes do have some special features—including their price formation processes, common-values behaviour, and bid-taker power—but the significance of these features has been overemphasized, and they often imply a need for stricter rather than more lenient competition policy.Bidding Markets, Auctions, Antitrust, Competition Policy, Bidding, Market Power, Private Values, Common Values, Anti-trust

Bid Rigging. An Analysis of Corruption in Auctions

In many auctions, the auctioneer is an agent of the seller. This invites corruption. We propose a model of corruption in which the auctioneer orchestrates bid rigging by inviting a bidder to either lower or raise his bid, whichever is more profitable. We characterize equilibrium bidding in first- and second-price auctions, show how corruption distorts the allocation, and why both the auctioneer and bidders may have a vested interest in maintaining corruption. Bid rigging is initiated by the auctioneer after bids have been submitted in order to minimize illegal contact and to realize the maximum gain from corruption

Information alliances in contests with budget limits

We study the role of information exchange through alliances in a framework with contestants who have binding budget limits and know their own budget limit but are incompletely informed about other contestants' budget limits. First, we solve for the Bayesian Nash equilibrium. Then we consider the role of information exchange through alliances. Contestants learn the budget limits of all players who are within the same alliance, and then decide independently about their own contest efforts. This type of alliance formation is beneficial for alliance members and neutral for players who do not belong to the alliance. Also, a merger between alliances is beneficial for their members. Further, we consider merger between alliances and discuss the set of stable combinations of alliances. --Contest,budget limits,incomplete information,alliances,information sharing

The German UMTS design : insights from multi-object auction theory

We briefly survey several insights about value and revenue maximization in multi-object auctions and apply them to the German (and Austrian) UMTS auction. In particular, we discuss in detail the exposure probelm that caused firms in Germany to pay almost Euro 20 billion for nothing

Should we combine incentive payments and tendering for efficiently purchasing conservation services from landholders?

Policy makers aiming to get private landholders to provide non-marketed environmental services need to provide efficient economic incentives. Two ideas have been explored to achieve this: linking contract payments to environmental outcomes and putting the contracts up for tender. This paper investigates whether there are any gains to be had by combining the benefits of both approaches. Landholder risk aversion may offset incentive effects if the fall in participation outweighs any increases in individual effort. Using controlled lab experiments in two countries and across four subject groups, and systematically varying the rate at which payments are linked to uncertain outcomes, this paper clarifies the conditions under which incentives overcome risk-aversion – a parameter which was also measured. Results show that for risk averse landholders the most efficient approach is in general to tender contracts only moderately linked to environmental outcomes – that is, using a balanced combination of fixed input payments and of payments linked to uncertain outcomes. This paper also highlights how experiments can complement the inherent limitations of a purely theoretical analysis.Conservation tenders, auctions, incentive contracts, agricultural policy, environmental policy, market-based instruments, experimental economics, Agricultural and Food Policy, Environmental Economics and Policy,

Bid Rigging – An Analysis of Corruption in Auctions

In many auctions, the auctioneer is an agent of the seller. This invites corruption. We propose a model of corruption in which the auctioneer orchestrates bid rigging by inviting a bidder to either lower or raise his bid, whichever is more profitable. We characterize equilibrium bidding in first- and second-price auctions, show how corruption distorts the allocation, and why both the auctioneer and bidders may have a vested interest in maintaining corruption. Bid rigging is initiated by the auctioneer after bids have been submitted in order to minimize illegal contact and to realize the maximum gain from corruption.auctions, procurement, corruption, right of first refusal, numerical methods

Private Provision of Public Infrastructure: An Organizational Analysis of the Next Privatization Frontier

Constrained by severe, ongoing fiscal pressures and sensitive to concerns over bureaucratic inefficiency, policy-makers in a number of countries are re-evaluating both the goals and instruments of the modern state. In doing so, some have endorsed the need for government \u27reinvention,\u27 a term that is admittedly susceptible of a broad range of meanings, but which nonetheless contemplates a significant shift away from reliance on governmental provision of goods and services in favour of provision by the for-profit and third sectors.\u27 Although not uncontroversial, the claim is that, in comparison with governmental supply systems, both for-profit and third sector modes of delivery offer a superior means for organizing productive activity because of the greater incentives that exist within these organizations for lower-cost, innovative production. Although the claim has been made in a number of different policy contexts, we focus on its salience in the context of government\u27s role in supplying traditional physical infrastructure projects such as roads and highways, bridges, dams, water and sewage systems, and airports

Andrei Drives Bentley, Boris Drives Lada: Why Corrupt States Have Clean Agencies.

In societies where corruption is rife, why do bureaucrats in some agencies extract more than enough to get rich, while others do not? This dissertation explains why corruption varies across agencies within the same state, when the factors that explain variation across states (e.g. political competition) are weak or absent. In other words, why in corrupt states aren't all agencies equally corrupt? My theory explains how these puzzling cases arise from the interaction between bureaucrats in a hierarchy. They must balance risky collusion necessary to grow the available rents, against competition to take a larger share of these spoils. Characteristics of agencies well-known in the bureaucratic politics literature change the terms of this trade-off, most importantly the degree of information asymmetry between bureaucrats authorizing corruption, and those carrying it out. The greater this asymmetry, the more difficult it is to maintain the collusion necessary to succeed at corruption. I test this and other implications using a novel dataset on Russian public procurement covering five million purchases by 110,000 agencies from 2011-2015.PHDPolitical ScienceUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/135764/1/smcgirr_1.pd