Local politicians’ preferences in public procurement: ideological or strategic reasoning?

Abstract

ABSTRACT Governments do not exclusively buy from the cheapest bidder and increasingly use public procurement as a policy instrument to achieve wider environmental, innovative and social objectives. Past studies have shown the process of government contracting to be connected to political factors. This paper studies the extent to which politicians’ preferences for price and non-price criteria in the contract awarding stage are associated with politicians’ ideological reasoning (the Citizen Candidate model), and strategic reasoning (the Downsian approach). Politicians’ preferences are analysed through a discrete choice experiment. We find that politicians’ preferences for non-price criteria are strongly connected to ideological reasoning and to a limited extent to strategic reasoning. We also observe that, regardless of their political ideology and financial situation of the municipality, politicians are willing to look beyond price, and consider environmental, innovative and social criteria when awarding contracts.