Bidder Asymmetry in Infrastructure Procurement : Are There Any Fringe Bidders?

Estache, Antonio ; Iimi, Atsushi

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: AFFILIATED ORGANIZATIONS;    AUCTION;    AUCTIONS;    BID;    BIDDER;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-4660
RP-ID  :  WPS4660

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

Asymmetric auctions are among the mostrapidly growing areas in the auction literature. Thepotential benefits from improved auction efficiency areexpected to be enormous in public procurement auctionsrelated to official development projects. Entrant biddersare considered a key to enhance competition in an auctionand break potential collusive arrangements among incumbentbidders. Asymmetric auction theory predicts that weak(fringe) bidders would bid more aggressively when they arefaced with a strong (incumbent) opponent. Using officialdevelopment assistance procurement data, this paper findsthat in the major infrastructure sectors, entrants submittedsystematically aggressive bids in the presence of anincumbent bidder. The findings also show that a highconcentration of incumbents in an auction would harm auctionefficiency, raising procurement costs. The results suggestthat auctioneers should encourage fringe bidders to activelyparticipate in the bidding process while maintaining thequality of the projects. This is conducive to enhancingcompetitive circumstances in public procurements andimproving allocative efficiency.