"Procedural Rules, Access of SMEs and Efficiency: Evidence from French Public Procurement"

Abstract

For the last 20 years, a series of public procurement reforms has sought to enhance the efficiency of purchases by increasing public buyers’ discretionary power. Yet it has been argued that there is a lack of empirical results con- cerning the impact of such reforms on outcomes, including efficiency. In this paper, we attempt to fill this gap by studying the use of French “adapted procedures”, a tendering procedure that allows discretion to public buyers to adapt most dimensions of the procedure to their needs. Using an origi- nal dataset from a French social housing constructor, we empirically assess the use of such procedures on the two goals identified by the government (fluidification of the procurement process and access of SMEs) as well as on efficiency. We find some evidence that these procedures enable a significant reduction in the length of the tendering process (a proxy for the fluidifi- cation). We also show that they allow broader admissions of SMEs to the bidding stage. Finally, we find that these positive results do not come at a price for the public body. Implications of these results for public policies are then discussed.