As part of public procurement, many governments adopt small business programs to pro- vide contract opportunities for businesses often with preferences for firms operated by mem- bers of groups designated as disadvantaged. The redistribution arising from such programs, however, can introduce...

It is commonly observed in practices that prime contractors solicit subcontract bids, prior to submitting their bids in procurement auctions: the auctioneers in subcontract auctions will become bidders in a procurement auction. This point is remarkably different from the standard theory of...

To be the lowest bidder in procurement auctions, prime contractors commonly solicit subcontract bids at the bid preparation stage. A remarkable feature of the subcontract competition is that "winning is not everything"; the lowest subcontractor gets a job conditional on his prime contractor's...

Regarding optimal design in the private value environment, there is an unsolved discrepancy in the literature regarding asymmetric auctions and auctions with endogenous participation; Literature on the former suggests that well-designed distortive mechanisms are optimal (revenue maximizing)...