OR and competitive tendering

Competitive tendering and contracting in the Australian public sector

Competitive tendering versus performance-based negotiation in Swiss public transport

The purpose of this study is to assess di¤erences in the levels of cost e¢ ciency of bus lines operated under competitively tendered contracts and performance-based negotiated contracts. Following the revision of the Swiss railways act in 1996, regional public authorities were given the choice between two di¤erent contractual regimes to procure public passenger transport services. We directly c...

Transacting under a Performance-Based Contract: The Role of Negotiation and Competitive Tendering

There is a growing body of theoretical and empirical evidence to support the promotion of awarding mechanisms with formal and informal devices, aimed at economic efficiency and effectiveness through the life of the contract i.e., ex ante and ex post coordination. Building on growing arguments to support negotiations instead of auctions, Bajari et al. (2002) suggest that auctions perform poorly ...

Transforming Legal Aid: Does Price Competitive Tendering Potentially Create Travesties of justice?

Introduction Legal aid in criminal proceedings exists to avoid defendants being presented as victims of an overbearing state, which assumes that “the two sides have access to roughly equivalent resources and expertise” (Young et al, 1996; 5). Recent governments have however focussed on value for money, which ignores political debate about what actually constitutes value in specific circumstance...

Over- and Under-Bidding in Tendering

Consider a government tendering the right to operate, for example, an airport, telecommunication network, or utility. There is an “incumbent bidder” who owns a complement or substitute facility, and one entering “new bidder”. With a “standard auction” on the payment to the government, the incumbent is willing to bid higher than its expected profit from the facility as winning implies that it is...