Public Procurement Agency Research Articles

Strengthening the Level of Integrity of Public Procurement at the Execution Phase: Evidence from the Italian National Frame Contracts

The risks of integrity arising at the execution stage of public procurement processes are often overlooked. When contract award and contract management are handled by different public authorities integrity concerns about contract execution become more acute. Data from the monitoring mechanism of the National Frame Contracts awarded by Consip S.p.A. - the Italian Public Procurement Agency - show a very weak level of contract enforcement. We conduct a regression analysis to assess to what extent contract mismanagement may depend upon the intrinsic characteristics of the contracts and/or the nature of the public authority using the contract itself.

The market for hospital medicine in Denmark

Pharmaceutical expenditure growth has outpaced GDP and healthcare expenditure growth rates in Denmark as in most OECD countries for the last decade. A major part of this increase was due to high growth rates in specialist areas that are typically located in hospital settings. Yet the market for hospital medicines and their procurement are still poorly understood. The present paper characterises the market for hospital medicines in Denmark in terms of its organisation and developments between 2005 and 2009. In Denmark hospital medicines are publicly financed and procurement is centrally organised. 98% of all medicines administered at Danish public hospitals are purchased through a public procurement agency by means of public tenders. Using data on actual contract prices we decompose pharmaceutical expenditure growth into the contributions from newly introduced medicines, price and volume increases and use summary statistics to compare market performance in both sectors. The market for hospital medicine is more concentrated than the pharmaceutical retail sector and the share of generics and parallel imported products is significantly lower. Between 2005 and 2009 expenditures for hospital medicines more than doubled -accounting for almost 40% of the total Danish pharmaceutical market in 2009. Price increases however - although positive and higher than in the pharmaceutical retail sector - were only moderate. The majority of the expenditure growth was due to an increase in utilisation and the introduction of new medicines in the hospital sector. Centralised tendering may therefore have important implications for competition and industry structure in the long run.

USING COMMERCIAL DISCIPLINE TO IMPROVE AUSTRALIAN DEFENCE PROCUREMENT: MISPLACED ENTHUSIASM?

Australia, like other democracies, has long sought to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of procurement for national defence. A recent review exhorted Defence procurement managers to exert greater “commercial discipline.” Similar calls have been made in other countries. This paper tests such public sector emulation of commercial practice by comparing the relative effectiveness of procurement via in‐house arrangements; a public procurement agency detached from Defence; and privatized provision. We show that what matters is not public or private ownership but how ownership and management are integrated and what incentive structures are applied. (JEL H44)

The Determinants of Suppliers' Performance in E-Procurement: Evidence from the Italian Government's E-Procurement Platform

Participation of small businesses in the market for public contracts is widely recognized as a key policy issue. It is also commonly held that the adoption of e-procurement solutions can be effective in pursuing such an objective. To this end, we analyze the transactions completed in the period 2004-2007 through the Italian Government's e-procurement platform, that is, the marketplace managed by the Italian Public Procurement Agency (Consip S.p.A.). Although descriptive statistics indicate that micro suppliers are the most represented group of firms in the marketplace, our econometric treatment provides some evidence that the former are less successful than all other suppliers in getting public contracts. Degree of loyalty with buyers, location and the use of other MEPA negotiation tools, also emerge as relevant factors of success in the e-procurement market.

Access to essential drugs in Guyana: a public health challenge

Guyana's pharmaceutical sector faces major challenges that limit access to essential drugs. This study analyzes Guyana's drug policy and regulation, public financing, and drug procurement and delivery. The study also identifies main barriers to drug access and proposes alternatives to strengthen the country's public health functions. Data were collected from the country's regulatory agencies, public procurement agency, pharmacies, wholesalers, and pharmaceutical companies. The information was supplemented with interviews with a convenient sample of Guyanese health authorities and stakeholders. Data were also compiled from scientific databases, and web pages of the country's Ministries of Health, Commerce and Finance, the Bureau of Statistics, and international organizations. Major barriers to drug access include: (1) lack of national drug policy and regulation, and limited role of the regulatory authority; (2) inefficient drug selection and irrational drug use; (3) insufficient financial resources and lack of drug pricing policy; (4) inefficient planning and managing public supply system; (5) deficient epidemiological and information systems; and (6) inadequate infrastructures and human resources shortage. Improving drug access in Guyana requires the strengthening of the country's public health functions and the implementation of a national drug policy and pricing policy, streamlining the drug financing, procurement, and planning and managing drug supply; and adequate infrastructures and human resources.

Policy through procurement—The introduction of digital signal process (DSP) hearing aids into the English NHS

Despite being a major user of many technologies and innovations, the healthcare sector's role and influence as a procurer of technologies has been poorly represented by the literature and consequently is not fully understood. Providing a practical example of the introduction of digital signal process (DSP) hearing aids in to the English NHS, this paper discusses the role of public sector procurement agencies in the uptake of technologies from the private sector and their adoption by the public sector. Employing a system of innovation (SI) approach, the paper highlights the need for policy-makers to adopt a dynamic as well as systemic perspective that recognises the shifting roles, responsibilities and interactions of key stakeholders throughout the innovation process.

Promoting competitive markets: The role of public procurement

The study presented here examines how public procurement agencies address establishing and maintaining competitive markets; a topic still in its academic infancy. Cases are used to address impediments and improve understanding of strategic priorities in managing for competitive markets. Public policy academics have observed many competing policies in the wider public sector. Specifically, this paper identifies a need for research on supplier incentives at a market level, on the post contract management of suppliers and as an important sub-set, key supplier relationship management, along with professional development.

Bureaucrats and Public Procurement

This paper deals with a Niskanen type of public-procurement agency. It is shown that the procurement game should be separated into an investment game and a project game, the first game to be played before nature determines the actual realizations of benefit and costs of the project, the second game to be played afterward. In the first game the relationship-specific investments of agency and seller are determined, in the second game the decision on the production of the project is taken. In contrast to many other incomplete-contract papers, in our Niskanen setting it is meaningless to write one and only one contract which refers to both investment and production. Welfare-optimal procurement of the project can be attained under relatively weak assumptions; welfare-optimal investments of the seller (and only of the seller) may result under special circumstances; welfare-optimal investments of both agency and seller cannot be reached.

Consent to Arbitration Through Agreement to Printed Contracts: The Continental Experience

PRINTED CONTRACTS (or contracts of which a considerable part is often preprinted), can be, inter alia , insurance contracts, construction contracts,1 maritime contracts, articles of association, software contracts, investment contracts,2 public procurement contracts, rental contracts, distribution and agency agreements. In fact, every contract may have, as an integral part of it, an annex consisting of preprinted general conditions, general clauses, applicable administrative rules, etc. These printed contracts or contract clauses normally cover a wide range of topics, of which the jurisdiction clause is but one. The question in which circumstances this printed (part of the) contract has been properly agreed to by the parties is a general one which may arise in relation to any particular clause of the contract (whether on interest for late payment, on liability or on penalty for non-performance) and each legal system or even each country has its own rules to determine whether mutual consent to it exists. We shall attempt to determine here whether among the many topics which are covered in the contract, the jurisdiction clause and, in particular, the arbitration clause is subject to special, particularly stricter, rules concerning consent. In other words, is it correct to state, as a Belgian court did – for a purely domestic arbitration – that: > If general conditions of one of the parties contains an arbitration clause, its binding effect on the other party does not depend on any specific arbitration rule, but on the general rules of contract law which determine when general conditions can be relied upon3? Simple as this answer appears, at least in a domestic case, there is no doubt that jurisdiction clauses (whether relating to state court jurisdiction or to arbitration) have, in international private law, a special status which distinguishes them from other contract clauses. For …