We suggest an alternative indicator that can lead to price reductions in the public procurement market for goods, i.e., the elasticity of prices to quantities purchased. We apply the analysis to the procurement of medical devices by exploiting a survey from the Italian AntiCorruption Authority....

I study a case of market sharing agreements to provide evidence of coordination between colluding firms on the degree to which they compete against each other (henceforth referred to as head-to-head competition) and their bidding behavior. I also quantify the impact that coordinating...

We study how delivery times and prices for hospital medical devices respond to the introduction of centralized procurement. Our identification strategy leverages a legislative change in Italy that mandated centralized purchases for a sub-set of devices. The statutory centralization generated a...

A number of recent papers have proposed that a pattern of isolated winning bids may be associated with collusion. In contrast, others have suggested that bid clustering, especially of the two lowest bids, is indicative of collusion. In this paper, we present evidence from an actual procurement...

A number of recent papers have proposed that a pattern of isolated winning bids may be associated with collusion. In contrast, others have suggested that bid clustering, especially of the two lowest bids, is indicative of collusion. In this paper, we present evidence from an actual procurement...

We study how delivery times and prices for hospital medical devices respond to the introduction of centralized procurement. Our identification strategy leverages a legislative change in Italy that mandated centralized purchases for a sub-set of devices. The statutory centralization generated a...