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Assessing Social Costs of Inefficient Procurement Design

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  • Eklöf, Matias

    (Department of Economics)

Abstract

This paper considers the social costs implied by inefficient allocation of contracts in a first price, sealed bid procurement auction with asymmetric bidders. We adopt a constrained (piecewise linear) strategy equilibrium concept and estimate the structural parameters of the bidders’ distribution of costs. We estimate social costs defined as the predicted cost difference between the winning firm and the most efficient bidding firm. We also compare the expected procurement costs under two different auction formats. The data is collected from procurement auctions of road painting in Sweden during 1993-99. The results indicate that the social costs of inefficient contract allocation is about 1.7 per cent of total potential social cost and that an efficient second price auction would lower the expected procurement cost by 2.8 per cent.

Suggested Citation

  • Eklöf, Matias, 2003. "Assessing Social Costs of Inefficient Procurement Design," Working Paper Series 2003:12, Uppsala University, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:hhs:uunewp:2003_012
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Eric Maskin & John Riley, 2000. "Equilibrium in Sealed High Bid Auctions," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 67(3), pages 439-454.
    2. Milgrom, Paul R & Weber, Robert J, 1982. "A Theory of Auctions and Competitive Bidding," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(5), pages 1089-1122, September.
    3. Eric Maskin & John Riley, 2000. "Asymmetric Auctions," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 67(3), pages 413-438.
    4. Olivier Armantier & Jean-Pierre Florens & Jean-Francois Richard, 1999. "Nash Equilibrium Approximations in Games of Incomplete Information," Department of Economics Working Papers 99-01, Stony Brook University, Department of Economics.
    5. Armantier, Olivier & Richard, Jean-Francois, 2000. "Empirical Game Theoretic Models: Computational Issues," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 15(1-2), pages 3-24, April.
    6. Armantier, O. & Florens, J.-P. & Richard, J.-F., 1998. "Empirical Game Theoretic Models: Constrained Equilibrium & Simulation," Papers 98.498, Toulouse - GREMAQ.
    7. Martin Pesendorfer, 2000. "A Study of Collusion in First-Price Auctions," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 67(3), pages 381-411.
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    Cited by:

    1. Thomas Aronsson & Sören Blomquist, 2008. "Redistribution and Provision of Public Goods in an Economic Federation," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 10(1), pages 125-143, February.
    2. Sören Blomquist & Vidar Christiansen, 2008. "Taxation and Heterogeneous Preferences," FinanzArchiv: Public Finance Analysis, Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 64(2), pages 218-244, June.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Procurement auctions; inefficiency; constrained strategy equilibrium; simulation;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C15 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods and Methodology: General - - - Statistical Simulation Methods: General
    • D44 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Auctions
    • H57 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - Procurement

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