The presence of a pervasive and evolving local regulation in the Italian public procurement offers a way to study the effects of a vast series of reforms involving firms qualifications, contracts awarding and subcontracting. This paper documents the legal aspects of these local regulations and,...

This paper shows how in Medicare Part D insurers' gaming of the subsidy paid to low-income enrollees distorts premiums and raises the program cost. Using plan-level data from the first five years of the program, I find multiple instances of pricing strategy distortions for the largest insurers....

This paper presents evidence on the perverse trade-off that first price auctions induce between low prices at the awarding stage and poor ex post performance when bids are not binding commitments. By exploiting the different timing with which first price auctions were introduced in Italy to...