Economic aspects of public procurement parameters in tertiary education sector

Abstract

Public procurement is a very important area of competitiveness development of the countries. Significant public sector financial resources are allocated through public procurement. Over the last decade, there has been a growing demand for an investigation of the efficiency of public procurement processes. In the research studies, analyses focusing on methodological aspects, efficiency assessment models, economic and transaction costs and other economic parameters in relation to public procurement have begun to appear gradually. Their importance has increased in the recent period, especially in the era associated with a lack of financial resources in the economic and social spheres. A correct determination of the mechanisms ensuring the implementation of transparent competition is able to allow improvement of competitive environment. Such aspects prompt this study, which is aimed at examination of the selected parameters of public procurement in the tertiary education sector and their impact on the final cost of the public procurement contract. There are no such sectoral analyses within the national environments, making it difficult to create an international comparative basis. The aim of the paper is to investigate the impact of the selected public procurement parameters on the final price. These parameters are subcontractor participation, European funds funding, usage of electronic auction, type of procured item, and procurement procedure. Besides these ones, public procurement processes also influence the final price. Approximately, a share of 95 % from the expected price is reflected in the final price, whilst a mean regression coefficient of the number of offers reaches a level of -17499.07 in the year 2017. The outcome of the analysis can help the procurers to identify the behavior of public procurement and to confirm or disprove the significance of the parameters that are examined using the quantitative methods. The results of this analysis are beneficial for national policymakers as well as national and international benchmarking.