Stabilité externe et anticipation des offres concurrentielles par les ententes dans les marchés publics : une analyse empirique

We analyze bidder collusion in public procurement. Our focus is on less than all-inclusive cartels. We use public information on convicted bid-rigging schemes taken from the decisions of the French Competition Authority to tackle the question of external cartel stability. Our goal is to investigate the impact of the number of outside bidders on cartels. We first show that despite the strict anonymity rules of French public procurement, cartels anticipate the number of outside firms and submit their low bids accordingly. This result confirms some common theoretical assumptions. We also show that this adaptation lowers the losses of cartels due to these outside firms. We then discuss the implications of these results for public policy.