IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hhs/umnees/0825.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Do Combinatorial Procurement Auctions Lower Cost? - An Empirical Analysis of Public Procurement of Multiple Contracts

Author

Listed:
  • Lunander, Anders

    (Swedish Business School)

  • Lundberg, Sofia

    (Department of Economics, Umeå University)

Abstract

Combinatorial procurement auctions enable suppliers to pass their potential cost synergies on to the procuring entity and may therefore lead to lower costs and enhance efficiency. However, bidders might find it profitable to inflate their stand-alone bids in order to favour their package bids. Using data from standard and combinatorial procurement auctions, we find that bids on individual contracts in simultaneous standard auctions without the option to submit package bids are significantly lower than the corresponding stand-alone bids in combinatorial auctions. Further, no significant difference in procurer’s cost as explained by auction format is found.

Suggested Citation

  • Lunander, Anders & Lundberg, Sofia, 2011. "Do Combinatorial Procurement Auctions Lower Cost? - An Empirical Analysis of Public Procurement of Multiple Contracts," Umeå Economic Studies 825, Umeå University, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:hhs:umnees:0825
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.econ.umu.se/DownloadAsset.action?contentId=159132&languageId=3&assetKey=ues825
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Anthony M. Kwasnica & John O. Ledyard & Dave Porter & Christine DeMartini, 2005. "A New and Improved Design for Multiobject Iterative Auctions," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 51(3), pages 419-434, March.
    2. Frank Kelly & Richard Steinberg, 2000. "A Combinatorial Auction with Multiple Winners for Universal Service," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 46(4), pages 586-596, April.
    3. Holzman, Ron & Monderer, Dov, 2004. "Characterization of ex post equilibrium in the VCG combinatorial auctions," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 47(1), pages 87-103, April.
    4. Yokoo, Makoto & Sakurai, Yuko & Matsubara, Shigeo, 2004. "The effect of false-name bids in combinatorial auctions: new fraud in internet auctions," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 46(1), pages 174-188, January.
    5. Sven de Vries & Rakesh V. Vohra, 2003. "Combinatorial Auctions: A Survey," INFORMS Journal on Computing, INFORMS, vol. 15(3), pages 284-309, August.
    6. Krishna, Vijay & Rosenthal, Robert W., 1996. "Simultaneous Auctions with Synergies," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 17(1), pages 1-31, November.
    7. Anders Lunander & Jan-Eric Nilsson, 2004. "Taking the Lab to the Field: Experimental Tests of Alternative Mechanisms to Procure Multiple Contracts," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 25(1), pages 39-58, January.
    8. Peter Cramton & Yoav Shoham & Richard Steinberg, 2004. "Combinatorial Auctions," Papers of Peter Cramton 04mit, University of Maryland, Department of Economics - Peter Cramton, revised 2004.
    9. Babaioff, Moshe & Feldman, Michal & Nisan, Noam & Winter, Eyal, 2012. "Combinatorial agency," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 147(3), pages 999-1034.
    10. Kagel, John H. & Levin, Dan, 2005. "Multi-unit demand auctions with synergies: behavior in sealed-bid versus ascending-bid uniform-price auctions," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 53(2), pages 170-207, November.
    11. Albano, Gian Luigi & Germano, Fabrizio & Lovo, Stefano, 2001. "A comparison of standard multi-unit auctions with synergies," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 71(1), pages 55-60, April.
    12. Jeffrey S. Banks & John O. Ledyard & David P. Porter, 1989. "Allocating Uncertain and Unresponsive Resources: An Experimental Approach," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 20(1), pages 1-25, Spring.
    13. R. Preston McAfee & John McMillan & Michael D. Whinston, 1989. "Multiproduct Monopoly, Commodity Bundling, and Correlation of Values," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 104(2), pages 371-383.
    14. Estelle Cantillon & Martin Pesendorfer, 2006. "Auctioning bus routes: the London experience," ULB Institutional Repository 2013/9003, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Hultkrantz, Lars & Lunander, Anders, 2013. "Design of a Combinatorial Bidding Market for Green Corridor Freight," Working Papers 2013:6, Örebro University, School of Business.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Marcelo Olivares & Gabriel Y. Weintraub & Rafael Epstein & Daniel Yung, 2012. "Combinatorial Auctions for Procurement: An Empirical Study of the Chilean School Meals Auction," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 58(8), pages 1458-1481, August.
    2. Chernomaz, Kirill & Levin, Dan, 2012. "Efficiency and synergy in a multi-unit auction with and without package bidding: An experimental study," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 76(2), pages 611-635.
    3. Hultkrantz, Lars & Lunander, Anders, 2013. "Design of a Combinatorial Bidding Market for Green Corridor Freight," Working Papers 2013:6, Örebro University, School of Business.
    4. Meng, Xin & Gunay, Hikmet, 2017. "Exposure problem in multi-unit auctions," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 165-187.
    5. G. Anandalingam & Robert W. Day & S. Raghavan, 2005. "The Landscape of Electronic Market Design," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 51(3), pages 316-327, March.
    6. Avenali, Alessandro, 2009. "Exploring the VCG mechanism in combinatorial auctions: The threshold revenue and the threshold-price rule," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 199(1), pages 262-275, November.
    7. Jawad Abrache & Teodor Crainic & Michel Gendreau & Monia Rekik, 2007. "Combinatorial auctions," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 153(1), pages 131-164, September.
    8. Anders Lunander & Sofia Lundberg, 2013. "Bids And Costs In Combinatorial And Noncombinatorial Procurement Auctions—Evidence From Procurement Of Public Cleaning Contracts," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 31(4), pages 733-745, October.
    9. Aleksandar Pekev{c} & Michael H. Rothkopf, 2003. "Combinatorial Auction Design," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 49(11), pages 1485-1503, November.
    10. Martin Bichler & Alexander Pikovsky & Thomas Setzer, 2009. "An Analysis of Design Problems in Combinatorial Procurement Auctions," Business & Information Systems Engineering: The International Journal of WIRTSCHAFTSINFORMATIK, Springer;Gesellschaft für Informatik e.V. (GI), vol. 1(1), pages 111-117, February.
    11. Soumyakanti Chakraborty & Anup K. Sen & Amitava Bagchi, 2015. "Addressing the valuation problem in multi-round combinatorial auctions," Information Systems Frontiers, Springer, vol. 17(5), pages 1145-1160, October.
    12. Tuomas Sandholm & David Levine & Michael Concordia & Paul Martyn & Rick Hughes & Jim Jacobs & Dennis Begg, 2006. "Changing the Game in Strategic Sourcing at Procter & Gamble: Expressive Competition Enabled by Optimization," Interfaces, INFORMS, vol. 36(1), pages 55-68, February.
    13. Lawrence M. Ausubel & Paul Milgrom, 2004. "Ascending Proxy Auctions," Discussion Papers 03-035, Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research.
    14. Pesendorfer, Martin & Cantillon, Estelle, 2007. "Combination Bidding in Multi-Unit Auctions," CEPR Discussion Papers 6083, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    15. Richard Li-Yang Chen & Shervin AhmadBeygi & Amy Cohn & Damian R. Beil & Amitabh Sinha, 2009. "Solving Truckload Procurement Auctions Over an Exponential Number of Bundles," Transportation Science, INFORMS, vol. 43(4), pages 493-510, November.
    16. Fernanda Nakano Kazama & Aluizio Fausto Ribeiro Araujo & Paulo Barros Correia & Elaine Guerrero-Peña, 2021. "Constraint-guided evolutionary algorithm for solving the winner determination problem," Journal of Heuristics, Springer, vol. 27(6), pages 1111-1150, December.
    17. Park, Sunju & Rothkopf, Michael H., 2005. "Auctions with bidder-determined allowable combinations," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 161(2), pages 399-415, March.
    18. Itai Sher, 2012. "Optimal shill bidding in the VCG mechanism," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 50(2), pages 341-387, June.
    19. Munro, David R. & Rassenti, Stephen J., 2019. "Combinatorial clock auctions: Price direction and performance," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 195-217.
    20. Pallab Sanyal, 2016. "Characteristics and Economic Consequences of Jump Bids in Combinatorial Auctions," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 27(2), pages 347-364, June.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Combinatorial procurement auctions; Contract bidding;

    JEL classification:

    • D44 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Auctions
    • H57 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - Procurement

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:hhs:umnees:0825. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: David Skog (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/inumuse.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.