ABSTRACT Using the organizational paradox perspective, the study discusses how a context of national emergency modifies the propensity for transparency in tender waivers in municipalities. The ...empirical analysis indicates that there are tensions in the transparency of the public procurement process and that the public control literature should consider emergency and normal contexts differently. Emergency situations, in which budgetary funds are urgently allocated to emergency contracts, require greater transparency and control to reduce the risk of misuse of funds. Paradoxically, there is a reduction in transparency and a weakening of social control. The level of transparency of local governments under the same legislation varies according to the political support and understanding of the authorities in different legislatures and mandates, and between periods of emergency and normality. It is desirable for supervisory agencies and civil society to be aware of possible regressions in transparency practices in times of emergency, even for municipalities that are examples of transparency in times of normality. A content analysis was conducted on 1,528 tender waivers in 32 small municipalities in São Paulo State from 2019 to 2020. The level of transparency of the tenders was compared before and during the first year of the pandemic. Interviews were then conducted with public officials with experience in transparency practices in these municipalities, as well as with journalists and leaders of non-governmental organizations (NGOs), to validate the analysis on the transparency of the procurement process during the pandemic. Emergency situations can alter practices related to fiscal transparency in local governments when national authorities relax procurement rules. The study shows that the COVID-19 pandemic emergency led to reduced transparency in the procurement of supplies in some municipalities, particularly in contracts for supplies and services to cope with the pandemic crisis.
RESUMO Usando a perspectiva de paradoxo organizacional, o estudo discute como um contexto de emergência nacional modifica a propensão à transparência das dispensas de licitações em prefeituras. A análise empírica indica as tensões à transparência do processo de compras no poder público e que a literatura de controle público deve considerar, de forma diferenciada, os contextos de emergência e de normalidade. Situações emergenciais, em que recursos orçamentários são aplicados a contratações emergenciais em regime de urgência, requerem maior transparência e controle, para reduzir o risco de mau uso do recurso. Paradoxalmente, observam-se redução da transparência e maior fragilização do controle social. Os níveis de transparência de governos locais, sob uma mesma legislação, oscilam de acordo com o apoio político e entendimento de autoridades em diferentes legislaturas e mandatos e entre períodos de emergência ou normalidade. É desejável que entidades de controle e sociedade civil estejam atentas aos eventuais retrocessos nas práticas de transparência em períodos de emergência, mesmo para as prefeituras que são exemplos de transparência em períodos de normalidade. Foi realizada análise de conteúdo de 1.528 dispensas de licitações de 32 municípios paulistas de pequeno porte nos anos de 2019 e 2020. O nível de transparência das licitações foi comparado antes e no 1º ano de pandemia. Em seguida, foram realizadas entrevistas com servidores públicos com experiência nas práticas de transparência nesses municípios, assim como com jornalistas e líderes de organizações não governamentais (ONGs), para validar as reflexões sobre a transparência do processo de contratação durante a pandemia. Situações de emergência podem alterar as práticas associadas à transparência fiscal em governos locais quando autoridades nacionais flexibilizam as regras de contratação. O estudo mostra que a emergência da pandemia da covid-19 gerou redução da transparência na contratação de insumos em alguns municípios, sobretudo nos contratos de insumos e serviços para combater a crise da pandemia.
In an international context, auctions are becoming increasingly common as a support scheme for renewable energies. In this case study, we analyze the Brazilian experience with wind power in the ...period from 2009 to 2015 with regard to the development of auction prices, rates of completion and market concentration.
Inflation-adjusted auction prices in Brazil decreased by 54% until the end of 2012, before subsequently growing again to 87% of the first round price. The declines in prices can be attributed to the increasing experience of actors and the increasing level of competition among project developers, investors and turbine manufacturers. Various factors played a role in the price increase, including both regulatory changes such as a modification of grid connection terms, as well as external factors such as the falling value of the Brazilian real against the US dollar.
Only 14% of wind projects from the first eight auction rounds were completed on schedule. The reasons cited for this include delayed grid connections, delays resulting from environmental feasibility permits, supply bottlenecks for wind power plants, the bankruptcy of the turbine manufacturer IMPSA or delayed financing approval by the Brazilian development bank BNDES. However, the number of project cancellations is low to date, so that a final rate of completion of between 89% and 98% is likely to be achieved.
The number of owners of wind power projects has increased from 16 to 49 actors. The market share of the five largest owners has declined from nearly 60% to 37%. The ratio of pre-qualified to awarded capacity was consistently at over five, and the Herfindahl Index suggests an unconcentrated market. These findings indicate that the level of competition is sufficient to ensure free price formation in the market.
The owners are primarily large, financially strong project planners, energy providers or investment firms.
•We list the factors that led to sinking and then to increasing auction prices.•We show the magnitude of project delays and explain possible reasons for them.•We identify the majority owners of the awarded wind parks and calculate the market concentration.
The EU has assumed objectives for energy sustainability and the fight against climate change. In this regard, the generation of biogas allows contributions to the 2020 established targets. The EU is ...leader in the production of biogas, representing 60% of total global production in 2011. The estimates of the contribution of biogas to electricity generation for 2020 in the EU-28 represent 1.5% within the total energy mix.
This paper analyzes the measures implemented in the EU-28 to promote biogas, relating them to the country targets established in their National Renewable Energy Action Plans. Currently, 19 countries apply some measure of price and/or amount: 14 use Feed-in Tariffs, 6 Premium Tariffs and 1 uses tenders.
A trend has been observed to reduce public financial support to promote biogas, linked to the reduction of the cost of this technology, and to the attempt to increasingly link it to the markets. However, excessive linking to the market hinders its development, putting the attainment of 2020 targets at risk. Consequently, the Feed-in Tariff or Premium Tariff systems, used in each country, must be designed in agreement with the peculiarities of the development of their markets, to be able to guarantee suitable development.
•Conservation tender metrics describe relative values from alternative investments.•Twelve lessons are identified to guide researchers and practitioners in metric design.•Four example tenders ...illustrate tradeoffs in practical implementation.•The lessons support improved PES and conservation tender efficiency.
In conservation tenders metrics are intended to describe the values that would result from alternate investments; they are the linkage between individual on-ground projects and tender scheme proponents. These metrics have received little attention by economists yet are the critical linchpin that defines the nature of the values that are traded in markets. In this paper we identify twelve lessons that can guide practitioners in metric design. These lessons embrace the principal biophysical changes likely to result from management change at each site and in combination, and reflect the values that society places on the outcomes from these changes. Practical application is explored through four example tenders encompassing five metrics which demonstrate substantial variation from the lessons identified. The practical consequences for cost-efficiency of investment, and for the use of conservation tenders generally, are unclear because of the practical and political difficulties in developing effective conservation tender approaches.
Governments and private sectors currently procure software solutions for industry through public tender using mass distribution websites. This alternative organizes the demand and produces a large ...number of software tenders. Objective . The present study focuses on analyzing the texts of these documents to characterize them efficiently and explore a particular solution to the general problem known as "to bid or not to bid." The tool is based on the automatic classification of speech acts, from where we generate different metrics from the Public Call Software Tender (PCST). Methodology . Our first approach was to use some analysis techniques suggested for Requirements Specifications. In particular, our interest focused on speech acts and the ontology-based on speech acts for analyzing requirements. These works focus on classifying software requirements in the early stages of the life cycle, which gave us a starting point for our work in PCST. We use our tool to analyze a set of four PCSTs downloaded from the Chilean Government's public purchases website for the validation stage. The automatic analysis consisted in categorizing and classifying the four PCST downloaded, obtaining the measured values of the variables used by the metrics. Results . An initial assessment shows that the results of this application agree with the proposals generated manually by expert analysts. Our proposal saves time and effort when looking for relevant tenders. Conclusion . We consider the theory of speech acts, which allows texts to be categorized from a pragmatic point of view. We propose a first version of an automatic text classifier based on characterizing speech acts accompanied by metrics. This tool will allow potential tenderers in a public call for software tenders to decide whether it is worth tendering for the call. Based on these assumptions, we propose to use the identification of speech acts in requirements specifications to calculate a set of metrics that will enable us not only to describe PCST but also to compare them.
Abstract
Background
Competitive tenders on pharmaceuticals are one of the most effective cost-containment instruments in healthcare systems. Its effectiveness has been demonstrated, among other ...things, in markets for generic medicine and biosimilars. In Denmark, an internationally unique model for competitive tenders on analogue substitutable pharmaceuticals has been developed and implemented for all public hospitals.
Methods
We obtained data on all analogue competitive tenders carried out by the Danish Medicines Council from its foundation on January 1, 2017, to October 9, 2020. We calculated univariate descriptive statistics, pairwise correlations and made a multiple regression analysis on tender savings.
Results
Average annual saving on hospital pharmaceutical purchase prices was 44.1% ranging from 0.4% to 92.8% between therapeutic areas and areas of indication. There was a significant positive correlation between tender savings and the number of competitors participating in the tender, and a significant negative correlation between tender savings and the number of days since market authorization.
Conclusions
This study finds analogue tenders to be similar in effect and mechanism to competitive tenders in markets for generic medicine and biosimilars. It supports the increasing number of empirical findings that competitive tendering has a high potential to generate substantial savings on healthcare budgets.
•We study a model of procurement free from the insolvency effect.•Pay-what-you-say is the optimal payment rule.•The optimal surety bond is characterized for any allocation rule.•When the virtual ...costs are increasing the optimal allocation rule is efficient•The lowest-bid auction with a surety bond is the optimal procurement mechanism.
We consider procurement auctions for the projects where the cost of production is subject to ex-post shocks—cost overruns. The contractor may default due to these overruns, which affects the buyer’s expected cost. Here the lowest-bid auction emerges as the procurement mechanism that: (i) minimizes the expected transfers to the contractors, and (ii) requires the lowest surety bond to achieve a given probability of default. Since surety bonds are costly to post, the above makes a combination of the lowest-bid auction with the surety bond the optimal, i.e., the expected cost minimizing procurement mechanism in a wide range of parameters.
Conservation tenders are emerging as a critical mechanism for supporting payments for ecosystem services in Australia and have been applied at the national, state and regional level. These tenders ...are designer markets or policy mechanisms in which the proactive participation of landholders is required for success. In this paper we develop a five step framework to identify barriers to participation and to support the design of conservation tenders. We consider participation in six case study tenders covering a variety of land management objectives using our framework. These case studies also provide further pragmatic lessons in managing participation in tenders. Participation supporting factors include alignment of management priorities, opportunity for payment/compensation, effective engagement via information workshops and site visits, and clear and uncomplicated bidding and contracting experiences. Post-contract support may require further attention. Attention to these design elements is likely to support adequate participation and achieve the competitive allocation of funds from which conservation tenders derive their economic efficiency outcomes.
► A framework for the design of conservation tenders is presented. ► We identify what influences landholder decisions to participate in a tender. ► Design and participation for six case study tenders are examined against the framework. ► Landholder decisions to participate are explained by the framework. ► Policy makers should consider participation and efficiency consequences of design decisions.
The objective of this paper is to investigate the determinants of the adoption of green public procurement (GPP) practices at the local authority level. A conceptual contribution of the paper is an ...analytical framework, which acknowledges that the adoption of green criteria in tenders should be modelled as a conditionally independent decision from the decision to rely on GPP strategies (guidelines). This approach can help provide novel insights into how various political, organizational, and individual characteristics influence GPP. The paper provides an empirical illustration by concentrating on the role of organizational size. This analysis is based on survey responses from civil servants representing 140 Swedish municipalities. The results are based on the bivariate ordered probit estimator and suggest that large municipalities are more likely to rely on GPP strategies but also less prone to adopt green criteria in tenders when controlling for the presence of such strategies. In large organizations, the centralization of the procurement implies efficiency gains, but it will often be accompanied with longer organizational distances between the procuring and the environmental departments. The paper also highlights the wider implications of the proposed framework, including how future research on GPP practices could approach the role of various political and individual factors.
•The purpose is to investigate the determinants of green public procurement (GPP) practices.•The key contribution is an analytical framework addressing the endogeneity of GPP decisions.•The value of the framework is shown empirically by focusing on role of organizational size.•Survey answers from procurement managers are studied in a bivariate ordered probit model.•Large organizations often rely on GPP guidelines but may not adopt green criteria in tenders.
Postupak prodaje drvne sirovine putem javnih nadmetanja uvriježen je postupak i svakodnevan proces u zapadnim zemljama Europe, dok u Republici Hrvatskoj dobiva sve veći značaj posljednjeg desetljeća. ...Iako se glavnina drvnih sortimenata koje proizvodu Hrvatske šume d.o.o. prodaje prerađivačkoj industriji prema unaprijed definiranim kvotama i cijenama kroz okvirne višegodišnje ugovore, samo se manji dio drva nudi, posebno onog izuzetne vrijednosti, putem javnih nadmetanja. U sklopu istraživanja analizirana su javna nadmetanja u Hrvatskoj održana 2022. godine po vrstama drveća i sortimentnim klasama u odnosu na početne i prodajne cijene (€/m3) te postotak ostvaren iznad početne cijene. Nadalje, uspoređene su ostvarene prodajne cijene (€/m3) u Hrvatskoj 2022. prema vrsti drva s cijenama koje su postignute na jednom javnom nadmetanju najvrjednijih trupaca u Sloveniji iste godine. Kroz rezultate istraživanja analizirano je 45 javnih nadmetanja koja su realizirana tokom 2022. godine u Republici Hrvatskoj, te jednog javnog nadmetanja prodaje najvrjednijih trupaca iz privatnih šuma u Sloveniji 2022. godine. Rezultati analize javnih nadmetanja u Hrvatskoj pokazuju da se veći prosječni postotak iznad početne cijene ostvaruje ako su drvni sortimenti razlučnije razvrstani (klasirani) unutar ponuđenih prodajnih grupa. U analiziranom razdoblju za hrast lužnjak ponuditelji su za određene grupe 12 puta dali ponudu koja je iznosila više od 2 000,00 €/m3. Dodatno, pokazalo se da za ostvarenje što veće prodajne cijene kod hrasta lužnjaka treba izbjegavati formiranje grupa koje sadrže kombinaciju furnirskih i pilanskih sortimenata (F-III). Osim hrasta lužnjaka, rekordne cijene postizao je i gorski javor koji je imao i četiri rekordne realizirane kupnje u rasponu od 2 752,92 €/m3 do 4 692,00 €/m3. Usporedno, u Sloveniji je utvrđeno da su prosječne prodajne cijene (€/m3) značajno veće za crnogorične drvenaste vrste u odnosu na ostvarene prodajne cijena na javnim nadmetanjima u Hrvatskoj. Analizom ostvarenih prodajnih cijena drvnih sortimenata na javnim nadmetanjima u Hrvatskoj 2022. godine u odnosu na početne cijene utvrđena je statistički značajna razlika što ukazuje na buduću potrebu formiranja cijena svih proizvedenih sortimentnih klasa u korak s tržišnim prilikama.
The process of selling wood raw materials (timber assortments) through public tenders is an established procedure and a daily process in the Western countries of Europe, while in the Republic of Croatia it has been gaining more and more importance over the last decade. Although most of the timber assortments produced by Hrvatske šume Ltd. is sold to the processing industry according to predefined quotas through multi-year framework contracts, only a small part of timber is offered, especially that of exceptional value, through public tenders. As part of the research, public tenders held in Croatia in 2022 were analyzed by tree species and assortment classes in relation to the initial and selling price (€/m3) and the percentage achieved above the initial price. Furthermore, the achieved selling price (€/m3) in Croatia in 2022 was compared with the prices achieved at the public tenders of the most valuable logs in Slovenia for the same year. The second chapter presents the procedure for conducting public tenders for the sale of wood assortments in Croatia, which is defined by the Decree on the Auction of Certain Wood Assortments (Official Gazette No. 100/15). The method of analysis, synthesis, compilation, comparison and description was used in the processing and analysis of the research results. Descriptive and inferential statistical analysis with appropriate parametric and/or non-parametric models were used in data processing. Through the results of the research, 45 public tenders held in Croatia, and one public tender for the sale of the most valuable logs from private forests in Slovenia in 2022, were analyzed. Table 1 shows descriptive values of public tenders of timber assortments held during 2022 in Croatia. The testing of strength and direction of the connection between the basic indicators of the implementation of the public tender and the grouped realization of the percentage above the initial price for the pedunculate oak is shown in table two. Table 4 shows descriptive values of the achieved percentage above the initial price according to the class of wood assortments at the public tender during 2022. Presentation of realized quantities and prices at public tenders in 2022 for two most common types of broad leaves is visible in table 5 and for the two most common types of conifers in table 6. The results of public tender for the sale of timber assortments in Slovenia are presented in subsection 4.2. Table 7 shows the results of the sale of logs by species at the public tender in Slovenia in 2022. The results of the analysis of public tenders in Croatia show that a higher average percentage above the initial price is achieved if the timber assortments are more differentiated (better classified) within the offered sales groups. In the analyzed period, for the pedunculate oak, bidders made an offer 12 times for certain groups that amounted to more than 2 000 €/m3. In addition, it has been shown that to achieve the highest possible sales price for the pedunculate oak, the formation of groups containing a combination of veneer and sawmill assortments (F-III) should be avoided. In addition to pedunculate oak, record selling prices were also achieved by sycamore maple, which had four record offers ranging from 2 752.92 €/m3 to 4 692.00 €/m3. Comparatively, in Slovenia, it was determined that the average sales prices of logs (€/m3) are significantly higher for coniferous timber species compared to the realized sales prices at public tenders in Croatia. The analysis of realized sale prices of timber assortments at public tenders in Croatia in 2022 compared to initial prices revealed a statistically significant difference, which indicates the future need to form prices of all produced assortment classes in step with market opportunities.
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