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Improving health resilience through better procurement of medical supplies : lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic
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STG Resilience Papers; 2021; [ECO]
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HANSPACH, Philip, Improving health resilience through better procurement of medical supplies : lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic, STG Resilience Papers, 2021, [ECO] - https://hdl.handle.net/1814/71677
Abstract
• Bias for procuring domestically (“home bias”) stands in the way of an integrated
Single Market in procurement and is associated with malpractice that negatively
affected the procurement of medical supplies in 2020.
• The first infection wave in early 2020 coincided with an unprecedented surge in
cross-border procurement. Most of these were direct awards to firms, not
competitive tenders, indicating that home bias is not driven by ignorance of
buyers about foreign firms.
• Buyer discretion enables misallocation towards domestic buyers. Policy makers
should limit buyer discretion to promote cross-border procurement for medical
supplies. This allows the best firms to win contracts internationally, improving
health resilience through a stronger industrial base.
• Nonetheless, deregulation and increasing buyer discretion may have been
optimal in the emergency as the net effect of the pandemic and deregulation was
towards more cross-border procurement, at least temporarily.
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Additional Information
The STG Resilience Paper is part of the Commission Research Report and Interim Progress Report (June 2021) published by Reform for Resilience.