How open are public procurement markets?

Abstract

This paper uses different sources of data to assess the relative level of openness of the public procurement markets of major trading nations, with a specific focus on the European Union (EU). The data reveal a picture that is very different from what is commonly argued to be the case by policymakers in the EU. The divergence between discourse and reality is in part a reflection of the absence of appropriate data on government sourcing patterns, suggesting greater effort is needed to both compile more accurate statistics and to take into account basic economic factors such as the size of economies.