IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/revind/v43y2013i3p243-261.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Testing Low-Balling Strategy in Rural Road Procurement

Author

Listed:
  • 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
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s11151-013-9388-6
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11151-013-9388-6?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Paarsch, Harry J., 1992. "Deciding between the common and private value paradigms in empirical models of auctions," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 51(1-2), pages 191-215.
    2. Bajari, Patrick & Tadelis, Steven, 2001. "Incentives versus Transaction Costs: A Theory of Procurement Contracts," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 32(3), pages 387-407, Autumn.
    3. Leonardo Rezende, 2008. "Econometrics of auctions by least squares," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 23(7), pages 925-948.
    4. Brannman, Lance & Klein, J Douglass & Weiss, Leonard W, 1987. "The Price Effects of Increased Competition in Auction Markets," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 69(1), pages 24-32, February.
    5. Paarsch, Harry J., 1997. "Deriving an estimate of the optimal reserve price: An application to British Columbian timber sales," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 78(2), pages 333-357, June.
    6. Dakshina G. De Silva & Timothy Dunne & Georgia Kosmopoulou, 2003. "An Empirical Analysis of Entrant and Incumbent Bidding in Road Construction Auctions," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 51(3), pages 295-316, September.
    7. Tong Li & Xiaoyong Zheng, 2009. "Entry and Competition Effects in First-Price Auctions: Theory and Evidence from Procurement Auctions," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 76(4), pages 1397-1429.
    8. Porter, Robert H & Zona, J Douglas, 1993. "Detection of Bid Rigging in Procurement Auctions," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 101(3), pages 518-538, June.
    9. Hiroshi Ohashi, 2009. "Effects of Transparency in Procurement Practices on Government Expenditure: A Case Study of Municipal Public Works," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 34(3), pages 267-285, May.
    10. Hausman, Jerry, 2015. "Specification tests in econometrics," Applied Econometrics, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), vol. 38(2), pages 112-134.
    11. Antonio Estache & Atsushi Iimi, 2010. "Bidder Asymmetry in Infrastructure Procurement: Are There any Fringe Bidders?," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 36(2), pages 163-187, March.
    12. Atsushi Iimi, 2006. "Auction Reforms for Effective Official Development Assistance," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 28(2), pages 109-128, March.
    13. Klemperer, Paul, 2002. "How (not) to run auctions: The European 3G telecom auctions," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 46(4-5), pages 829-845, May.
    14. Philip A. Haile, 2001. "Auctions with Resale Markets: An Application to U.S. Forest Service Timber Sales," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(3), pages 399-427, June.
    15. Paulo K. Monteiro & Flavio M. Menezes, 2000. "original papers : Auctions with endogenous participation," Review of Economic Design, Springer;Society for Economic Design, vol. 5(1), pages 71-89.
    16. Benamghar, Radia & Iimi, Atsushi, 2011. "Efficiency in public procurement in Rural Road Projects of Nepal," Policy Research Working Paper Series 5736, The World Bank.
    17. Wolfstetter, Elmar, 1996. "Auctions: An Introduction," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 10(4), pages 367-420, December.
    18. Antonio Estache & Atsushi Iimi, 2009. "Joint Bidding, Governance And Public Procurement Costs:A Case Of Road Projects," Annals of Public and Cooperative Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 80(3), pages 393-429, September.
    19. Kessel, Reuben, 1971. "A Study of the Effects of Competition in the Tax-exempt Bond Market," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 79(4), pages 706-738, July-Aug..
    20. Robert Wilson, 1977. "A Bidding Model of Perfect Competition," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 44(3), pages 511-518.
    21. De Silva, Dakshina G. & Dunne, Timothy & Kankanamge, Anuruddha & Kosmopoulou, Georgia, 2008. "The impact of public information on bidding in highway procurement auctions," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 52(1), pages 150-181, January.
    22. McAfee, R. Preston & McMillan, John, 1987. "Auctions with a stochastic number of bidders," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 43(1), pages 1-19, October.
    23. Tong Li & Isabelle Perrigne, 2003. "Timber Sale Auctions with Random Reserve Prices," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 85(1), pages 189-200, February.
    24. Milgrom, Paul R & Weber, Robert J, 1982. "A Theory of Auctions and Competitive Bidding," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(5), pages 1089-1122, September.
    25. Steven Tadelis, 2009. "Auctions Versus Negotiations in Procurement: An Empirical Analysis," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 25(2), pages 372-399, October.
    26. World Bank, 2007. "Managing Public Finances for a New Nepal : A Public Finance Management Review," World Bank Publications - Reports 7745, The World Bank Group.
    27. Hoppe, Eva I. & Schmitz, Patrick W., 2011. "Can contracts solve the hold-up problem? Experimental evidence," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 73(1), pages 186-199, September.
    28. Williamson, Oliver E, 1983. "Credible Commitments: Using Hostages to Support Exchange," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 73(4), pages 519-540, September.
    29. Levin, Dan & Smith, James L, 1994. "Equilibrium in Auctions with Entry," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(3), pages 585-599, June.
    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. 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. 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).
    5. 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.
    6. Bonifaz, José L. & Saavedra, Eduardo H., 2023. "Aggressive bidding and the renegotiation of concession contracts: Empirical evidence from Peru," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 85(C).
    7. 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).

    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. Estache, Antonio & Iimi, Atsushi, 2011. "(Un)bundling infrastructure procurement: Evidence from water supply and sewage projects," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 19(2), pages 104-114, June.
    2. Antonio Estache & Atsushi Iimi, 2012. "Quality or Price? Evidence from ODA-Financed Public Procurement," Public Finance Review, , vol. 40(4), pages 435-469, July.
    3. Atsushi Iimi, 2016. "Multidimensional Auctions for Public Energy Efficiency Projects: Evidence from Japanese Esco Market," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 49(3), pages 491-514, November.
    4. 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).
    5. Antonio Estache & Atsushi Iimi, 2010. "Bidder Asymmetry in Infrastructure Procurement: Are There any Fringe Bidders?," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 36(2), pages 163-187, March.
    6. Antonio Estache & Atsushi Iimi, 2009. "Joint Bidding, Governance And Public Procurement Costs:A Case Of Road Projects," Annals of Public and Cooperative Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 80(3), pages 393-429, September.
    7. Vivek Bhattacharya & James W. Roberts & Andrew Sweeting, 2014. "Regulating bidder participation in auctions," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 45(4), pages 675-704, December.
    8. Hill, Jonathan B. & Shneyerov, Artyom, 2013. "Are there common values in first-price auctions? A tail-index nonparametric test," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 174(2), pages 144-164.
    9. repec:vuw:vuwscr:19224 is not listed on IDEAS
    10. Zheng, Xiaoyong, 2009. "Quantifying the cost of excess market thickness in timber sale auctions," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 27(5), pages 553-566, September.
    11. Hickman Brent R. & Hubbard Timothy P. & Sağlam Yiğit, 2012. "Structural Econometric Methods in Auctions: A Guide to the Literature," Journal of Econometric Methods, De Gruyter, vol. 1(1), pages 67-106, August.
    12. Susan Athey & Philip A. Haile, 2006. "Empirical Models of Auctions," NBER Working Papers 12126, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Tong Li & Xiaoyong Zheng, 2009. "Entry and Competition Effects in First-Price Auctions: Theory and Evidence from Procurement Auctions," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 76(4), pages 1397-1429.
    14. Sağlam, Yiğit, 2012. "Structural Econometric Methods in Auctions: A Guide to the Literature," Working Paper Series 19224, Victoria University of Wellington, The New Zealand Institute for the Study of Competition and Regulation.
    15. Nathalie Gimenes, 2014. "Econometrics of Ascending Auctions by Quantile Regression," Working Papers, Department of Economics 2014_25, University of São Paulo (FEA-USP).
    16. Ilke Onur & Bedri Kamil Onur Tas, 2019. "Optimal bidder participation in public procurement auctions," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 26(3), pages 595-617, June.
    17. İlke Onur & Rasim Özcan & Bedri Taş, 2012. "Public Procurement Auctions and Competition in Turkey," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 40(3), pages 207-223, May.
    18. James W. Roberts & Andrew Sweeting, 2013. "When Should Sellers Use Auctions?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(5), pages 1830-1861, August.
    19. Rodrigo Carril & Andres Gonzalez-Lira & Michael S. Walker, 2022. "Competition under Incomplete Contracts and the Design of Procurement Policies," Working Papers 1327, Barcelona School of Economics.
    20. Estache, Antonio & Iimi, Atsushi, 2008. "Procurement efficiency for infrastructure development and financial needs reassessed," Policy Research Working Paper Series 4662, The World Bank.
    21. Niklas Klarnskou & Philippos Louis & Wouter Passtoors, 2024. "Feedback and Competition in Procurement e-Auctions," University of Cyprus Working Papers in Economics 04-2024, University of Cyprus Department of Economics.

    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

    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:kap:revind:v:43:y:2013:i:3:p:243-261. 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    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.