The fluctuations in fuel prices over the past decade led a number of government agencies to introduce price adjustment clauses in procurement contracting. Those clauses were primarily designed to reduce contractors’ uncertainty without considering the impact of such initiatives on bidding and the budget. We analyze a newly constructed, detailed panel of observations on bids for construction contracts and compare bidding behavior across periods and projects, and across items within projects. Estimates from a difference-in-differences approach, indicate that bidding becomes more aggressive and less dispersed after the implementation of this policy. The difference is more pronounced when we consider itemized bids than overall project bids. Alternative techniques of regression discontinuity and nonparametric estimation are applied and yield consistent results."> The fluctuations in fuel prices over the past decade led a number of government agencies to introduce price adjustment clauses in procurement contracting. Those clauses were primarily designed to reduce contractors’ uncertainty without considering the impact of such initiatives on bidding and the budget. We analyze a newly constructed, detailed panel of observations on bids for construction contracts and compare bidding behavior across periods and projects, and across items within projects. Estimates from a difference-in-differences approach, indicate that bidding becomes more aggressive and less dispersed after the implementation of this policy. The difference is more pronounced when we consider itemized bids than overall project bids. Alternative techniques of regression discontinuity and nonparametric estimation are applied and yield consistent results."> The fluctuations in fuel prices over the past decade led a number of government agencies to introduce price adjustment clauses in procurement contracting. Those clauses were pr">
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Price Adjustment Policies in Procurement Contracting: An Analysis of Bidding Behavior

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  • Georgia Kosmopoulou
  • Xueqi Zhou
Abstract
type="main"> The fluctuations in fuel prices over the past decade led a number of government agencies to introduce price adjustment clauses in procurement contracting. Those clauses were primarily designed to reduce contractors’ uncertainty without considering the impact of such initiatives on bidding and the budget. We analyze a newly constructed, detailed panel of observations on bids for construction contracts and compare bidding behavior across periods and projects, and across items within projects. Estimates from a difference-in-differences approach, indicate that bidding becomes more aggressive and less dispersed after the implementation of this policy. The difference is more pronounced when we consider itemized bids than overall project bids. Alternative techniques of regression discontinuity and nonparametric estimation are applied and yield consistent results.

Suggested Citation

  • Georgia Kosmopoulou & Xueqi Zhou, 2014. "Price Adjustment Policies in Procurement Contracting: An Analysis of Bidding Behavior," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 62(1), pages 77-112, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:jindec:v:62:y:2014:i:1:p:77-112
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    Cited by:

    1. Georgia Kosmopoulou & Carlos Lamarche & Xueqi Zhou, 2016. "Price Adjustment Policies And Firm Size," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 54(2), pages 895-906, April.
    2. Vitali Gretschko & Martin Pollrich, 2022. "Incomplete Contracts in Multi-period Procurement," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(7), pages 5146-5161, July.
    3. Dejan Makovšek & Adrian Bridge, 2021. "Procurement Choices and Infrastructure Costs," NBER Chapters, in: Economic Analysis and Infrastructure Investment, pages 277-327, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Zhongmin Wang & Minbo Xu, 2016. "Empirical Evidence on Competition and Revenue in an All-Pay Contest," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 49(3), pages 429-448, November.
    5. Howell, Sabrina T., 2020. "Firm type variation in the cost of risk management," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    6. Gretschko, Vitali & Pollrich, Martin, 2019. "Incomplete contracts in dynamic procurement," ZEW Discussion Papers 19-040, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.

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