Effect of public procurement regulation on competition and cost-effectiveness

Abstract

This study empirically investigates the impact of public procurement regulation quality on the competition for tenders and the cost-effectiveness of awarded contracts, by employing the World Bank’s Benchmarking Public Procurement and EuroPAM Public Procurement quality scores. Using extensive data on public procurement in the European Economic Area, Switzerland, and Macedonia, the analysis in this paper shows that higher quality public procurement regulatory regimes are associated with higher levels of competition and cost-effectiveness. Improved regulation quality significantly increases the number of bidders and the probability that the procurement price is lower than the estimated cost.