Understanding the procurement performance of local governments: A duration analysis of public works

Abstract

Public works often suffer from long durations and time escalations, which entail the dissatisfaction of collective needs. Using micro-level data on the works recently procured by the municipalities of a large Italian region, we analyse delay incurrence and the subsequent time-to-completion of works. For this purpose, we rely on a split-population duration model. Our findings show that appropriate levels of expertise and experience – which are often believed to be lacking in municipalities – have a role in speeding up works' executions. The lack of experience is actually an issue that requires appropriate policy remedies, in that it brings to higher delay probability and longer delay durations. The same applies to municipalities that resort to late payments in response to budget constraints.

An Acid Test for Europeanization: Public Cyber Security Procurement in the European Union

“…There are a couple of points worth making from the numbers shown. The first point is that the random sample aligns rather well with national datasets regarding the relatively small share of contracts made by ministries and other central government units (Gori et al 2017). Most of the procurement contracts are made by public units operating at regional and local levels.…”

Time Overrun in Public Works—Evidence from North-East Italy

“…They report empirical research leading to the conclusion that projects promoted by local authorities took longer to complete than works commissioned by the country's central government. Along the same lines, when Gori et al [4] analyzed a dataset concerning public works in Tuscany (central Italy) for local authorities, they found that "insufficient procurement experience is associated with a higher probability of incurring delays and longer work durations" (p. 822). Public works require a level of specialization that not all local authorities possess [38].…”

“…According to the Agency for Territorial Cohesion (Agenzia per la Coesione Territoriale) [40], the average time to assign works worth less than €1 million is about 5 months, so the Veneto Region seems to perform poorly compared with the national average, despite the public authority managing the procedure being reasonably well organized [44]. We used "population" as a proxy of the dimension of the public authority awarding the contract, assuming that it would be more structured and specialized, the larger the population it serves [4,37]. This may indicate the skills available for managing the contract awarding process and consequently of the time needed to complete the procedure.…”

“…The purchase of works and services by public authorities guarantees the homogeneous urban and regional development of cities and territories. Inefficiencies in public procurement consequently damage individuals and communities, while an efficient delivery of public works may "hamper the full satisfaction of public needs" ( [4], p. 809). The cost and time overrun of projects is a relevant issue all over the world, affecting all categories of works, from civil engineering projects like highways, dams and railways to urban landmarks such as theaters, libraries and to urban brownfield restoration works.…”

Public Procurement and Accountability

“…While there is great potential in legislation that adjusts expectations to consider larger issues, there may be a lack of enforcement of these provisions; this can undermine achievement of performance expectations (Vluggen et al 2019). Centralization may be a way forward for consistency, but this may challenge accountability at the level of local government (Gori et al 2017).…”