IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cca/wpaper/379.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Impact of Centralization, Corruption and Institutional Quality on Procurement Prices: An Application to Pharmaceutical Purchasing in Italy

Author

Listed:
  • Simona Baldi
  • Davide Vannoni

Abstract

This paper deals with the open issue about the choice between a centralized versus a decentralized public procurement strategy. Using a unique dataset on tender prices of selected drugs for hospital usage awarded by a sample of 52 Italian local health service providers (ASLs) between 2009 and 2012, we test which procurement system (centralized, decentralized or hybrid) performs better. Controlling for several covariates, we always find that centralized and hybrid procurers pay lower prices as compared to decentralized units. Moreover, our results show that in areas in which corruption is higher or, more generally, institutional quality is lower, the effect of centralization in negotiating lower prices is much stronger, with savings that can reach also 50 percent of the price paid by ASLs that procure on their own.

Suggested Citation

  • Simona Baldi & Davide Vannoni, 2014. "The Impact of Centralization, Corruption and Institutional Quality on Procurement Prices: An Application to Pharmaceutical Purchasing in Italy," Carlo Alberto Notebooks 379, Collegio Carlo Alberto.
    • Handle: RePEc:cca:wpaper:379
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.carloalberto.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/no.379.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Oriana Bandiera & Andrea Prat & Tommaso Valletti, 2009. "Active and Passive Waste in Government Spending: Evidence from a Policy Experiment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(4), pages 1278-1308, September.
    2. repec:bla:ecopol:v:17:y:2005:i::p:37-75 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Tella, Eija & Virolainen, Veli-Matti, 2005. "Motives behind purchasing consortia," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(1), pages 161-168, January.
    4. Vagstad, Steinar, 2000. "Centralized vs. decentralized procurement: Does dispersed information call for decentralized decision-making?," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 18(6), pages 949-963, August.
    5. Oecd, 2000. "Centralised and Decentralised Public Procurement," SIGMA Papers 29, OECD Publishing.
    6. Graziano Abrate & Fabrizio Erbetta & Giovanni Fraquelli & Davide Vannoni, 2015. "The cost of corruption in the Italian solid waste industry," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 24(2), pages 439-465.
    7. Roberto Burguet & Yeon-Koo Che, 2004. "Competitive Procurement with Corruption," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 35(1), pages 50-68, Spring.
    8. Miriam A. Golden & Lucio Picci, 2005. "Proposal For A New Measure Of Corruption, Illustrated With Italian Data," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 17(1), pages 37-75, March.
    9. Gustavo Piga, 2011. "A Fighting Chance Against Corruption in Public Procurement?," Chapters, in: Susan Rose-Ackerman & Tina Søreide (ed.), International Handbook on the Economics of Corruption, Volume Two, chapter 5, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    10. George France & Francesco Taroni & Andrea Donatini, 2005. "The Italian health‐care system," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 14(S1), pages 187-202, September.
    11. Charles L. Munson, 2007. "The appeal of partially centralised purchasing policies," International Journal of Procurement Management, Inderscience Enterprises Ltd, vol. 1(1/2), pages 117-143.
    12. AfDB AfDB, . "Annual Report 2012," Annual Report, African Development Bank, number 461.
    13. Sorenson, Corinna & Kanavos, Panos, 2011. "Medical technology procurement in Europe: A cross-country comparison of current practice and policy," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 100(1), pages 43-50, April.
    14. Dimitri,Nicola & Piga,Gustavo & Spagnolo,Giancarlo (ed.), 2006. "Handbook of Procurement," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521870733, October.
    15. Kastanioti, Catherine & Kontodimopoulos, Nick & Stasinopoulos, Dionysis & Kapetaneas, Nikolaos & Polyzos, Nikolaos, 2013. "Public procurement of health technologies in Greece in an era of economic crisis," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 109(1), pages 7-13.
    16. Lengwiler, Yvan & Wolfstetter, Elmar G., 2006. "Corruption in Procurement Auctions," Discussion Paper Series of SFB/TR 15 Governance and the Efficiency of Economic Systems 90, Free University of Berlin, Humboldt University of Berlin, University of Bonn, University of Mannheim, University of Munich.
    17. Annamaria Nifo & Gaetano Vecchione, 2014. "Do Institutions Play a Role in Skilled Migration? The Case of Italy," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 48(10), pages 1628-1649, October.
    18. Mercedes Vellez, 2011. "Auctions versus Negotiations: Evidence from Public Procurement in the Italian Healthcare Sector," CEIS Research Paper 191, Tor Vergata University, CEIS, revised 29 Mar 2011.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Simona Baldi & Davide Vannoni, 2017. "The impact of centralization on pharmaceutical procurement prices: the role of institutional quality and corruption," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 51(3), pages 426-438, March.
    2. Chiappinelli, Olga, 2020. "Political corruption in the execution of public contracts," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 179(C), pages 116-140.
    3. Mihaly Fazekas & Istvan Janos Toth & Lawrence Peter King, 2013. "Corruption manual for beginners - "Corruption techniques" in public procurement with examples from Hungary," CERS-IE WORKING PAPERS 1339, Institute of Economics, Centre for Economic and Regional Studies.
    4. Giuseppe Albanese & Federico Antellini Russo & Roberto Zampino, 2016. "Criminalit? e scelte degli amministratori locali in tema di procedure di acquisto," ECONOMIA PUBBLICA, FrancoAngeli Editore, vol. 2016(2), pages 131-167.
    5. Calogero Guccio & Domenico Lisi & Ilde Rizzo, 2019. "When the purchasing officer looks the other way: on the waste effects of debauched local environment in public works execution," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 20(3), pages 205-236, September.
    6. Gustavo Piga, 2011. "A Fighting Chance Against Corruption in Public Procurement?," Chapters, in: Susan Rose-Ackerman & Tina Søreide (ed.), International Handbook on the Economics of Corruption, Volume Two, chapter 5, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    7. Massimo Finocchiaro Castro & Calogero Guccio & Giacomo Pignataro & Ilde Rizzo, 2018. "Is competition able to counteract the inefficiency of corruption? The case of Italian public works," Economia e Politica Industriale: Journal of Industrial and Business Economics, Springer;Associazione Amici di Economia e Politica Industriale, vol. 45(1), pages 55-84, March.
    8. Marina Cavalieri & Calogero Guccio & Domenico Lisi & Ilde Rizzo, 2020. "Does Institutional Quality Matter for Infrastructure Provision? A Non-parametric Analysis for Italian Municipalities," Italian Economic Journal: A Continuation of Rivista Italiana degli Economisti and Giornale degli Economisti, Springer;Società Italiana degli Economisti (Italian Economic Association), vol. 6(3), pages 521-562, November.
    9. Fazekas, Mihály & Tóth, Bence, 2018. "The extent and cost of corruption in transport infrastructure. New evidence from Europe," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 35-54.
    10. Baldi, Simona & Bottasso, Anna & Conti, Maurizio & Piccardo, Chiara, 2016. "To bid or not to bid: That is the question: Public procurement, project complexity and corruption," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 89-106.
    11. Cavalieri, Marina & Guccio, Calogero & Rizzo, Ilde, 2017. "On the role of environmental corruption in healthcare infrastructures: An empirical assessment for Italy using DEA with truncated regression approach," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 121(5), pages 515-524.
    12. Anna Balsevich & Elena Podkolzina, 2014. "Indicators Of Corruption In Public Procurement: The Example Of Russian Regions," HSE Working papers WP BRP 76/EC/2014, National Research University Higher School of Economics.
    13. Chiappinelli, Olga, 2020. "Decentralization and Public Procurement Performance: New Evidence from Italy," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 58(2), pages 856-880.
    14. Nicolas Campos & Eduardo Engel & Ronald D. Fischer & Alexander Galetovic, 2019. "Renegotiations and corruption in infrastructure: The Odebrecht case," "Marco Fanno" Working Papers 0230, Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche "Marco Fanno".
    15. Giuseppe Albanese & Federico Antellini Russo & Roberto Zampino, 2015. "Crime and public procurement, evidence from municipalities," Questioni di Economia e Finanza (Occasional Papers) 294, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    16. Gauthier, Bernard & Goyette, Jonathan & Kouamé, Wilfried A.K., 2021. "Why do firms pay bribes? Evidence on the demand and supply sides of corruption in developing countries," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 190(C), pages 463-479.
    17. Zhe Chen, 2021. "The bid orchestration and competitions in scoring procurement auctions," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 42(7), pages 1718-1729, October.
    18. Goswami, Mridu Prabal & Wettstein, David, 2016. "Rational bidding in a procurement auction with subjective evaluations," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 60-67.
    19. De Luca, Giacomo & Lisi, Domenico & Martorana, Marco & Siciliani, Luigi, 2021. "Does higher Institutional Quality improve the Appropriateness of Healthcare Provision?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 194(C).
    20. Wang, Hong, 2020. "Quality manipulation and limit corruption in competitive procurement," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 283(3), pages 1124-1135.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    public procurement; centralization; decentralization; pharmaceutical spending.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H57 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - Procurement
    • H83 - Public Economics - - Miscellaneous Issues - - - Public Administration
    • L33 - Industrial Organization - - Nonprofit Organizations and Public Enterprise - - - Comparison of Public and Private Enterprise and Nonprofit Institutions; Privatization; Contracting Out

    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:cca:wpaper:379. 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: Giovanni Bert (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/fccaait.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.