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Testing Low-Balling Strategy in Rural Road Procurement

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  • Atsushi Iimi

Abstract

A “low-balling strategy” by bidding contractors has increasingly been recognized as an important issue in public infrastructure procurement. Public works contracts are often imperfect and renegotiated after the contract award. Given the expectation for ex post adjustments, bidders seem motivated to take advantage of the low-balling strategy. This paper analyzes the endogeneity between the bid strategy and ex post adjustments. Using procurement data on rural road projects in Nepal, it shows that the bid strategy and adjustments are determined endogenously in the system. Anticipating cost and time overruns, firms would likely undercut normal bid prices. Then, ex post contract adjustments actually happen, because of their too aggressive bids. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media New York 2013

Suggested Citation

  • Atsushi Iimi, 2013. "Testing Low-Balling Strategy in Rural Road Procurement," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 43(3), pages 243-261, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:revind:v:43:y:2013:i:3:p:243-261
    DOI: 10.1007/s11151-013-9388-6
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    Cited by:

    1. Bartlomiej Rokicki, 2022. "Cost Underruns in Major Road Transport Infrastructure Projects—The Surprising Experience of Poland," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(21), pages 1-18, November.
    2. Fabian Herweg & Marco A. Schwarz, 2018. "Optimal Cost Overruns: Procurement Auctions With Renegotiation," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 59(4), pages 1995-2021, November.
    3. Herweg, Fabian & Schmidt, Klaus M., 2020. "Bayesian implementation and rent extraction in a multi-dimensional procurement problem," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).
    4. Hatsumi, Kentaro & Ishii, Rieko, 2022. "The effect of price on the quality of public construction in Japan," Japan and the World Economy, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).
    5. Nakanishi, Yoshinobu, 2022. "Determinants of the number of bidders and win-reserve ratio in open competitive tendering: Relationship-specific investments and incomplete contracts," Japan and the World Economy, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    6. Chong, Uven & Hopkins, Omar, 2016. "An international experience on the evolution of road costs during the project life cycle," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 60-66.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Auction theory; Competition; Ethnicity; Governance; Market entry; Public procurement; Rural roads; D44; H54; H57; D82;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D44 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Auctions
    • H54 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - Infrastructures
    • H57 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - Procurement
    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design

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