H57 - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies: ProcurementReturn

The article deals with the issue of the length of procedure in public procurement. Our analysis focuses on construction contracts in 2010-2015. We apply hierarchical linear regressions to these data to identify factors that affect the length of procedure. According to our results, the duration of a public contract does not affect the standard contract price. The nature of the contracting authority, the expected value, the openness of the procurement procedure, and the method of evaluation have a statistically significant impact on the length of the contract. As for other factors regarding the length of awarding time, the use of the subcontractor, the division of a contract into parts, and a review by the Office for the Protection of Competition due extend the time required. By contrast, contracting time can be reduced by the use of outsourcing. In the end of the article, we have put forward recommendations for economic policy and further research.

The article deals with the econometric analysis on the influence of selected characteristics of public contracts with respect to the decision making of bidders on public contracts regarding submissions to initiate proceedings to review the actions of the contracting authority at the Office for Protection of Competition. Logistic regression was applied to data on public procurement between the years 2007 and 2014, which was combined with the administrative decisions of the Office for the Protection of Competition, in order to identify the factors that affect the likelihood that the competitors will be protected against the conduct of the contracting authority by the Office for the Protection of Competition. The article also takes into account the possible obstructive behaviour of candidates, particularly those submissions which were subsequently withdrawn or submissions whose deposits were not paid.

The study analyses expenditures of all municipalities of the Czech Republic over the period 2003-2013. It aims to examine whether changes in municipal spending get affected by the electoral cycle. The analysis has proven that expenditures of municipalities of the Czech Republic are influenced by the political cycle. However, the political business cycle has at the level of municipalities (compared to the macroeconomic level) its peculiarities. These arise mainly from limited options of municipal politicians to use economic instruments to win electoral votes in elections. To receive electoral votes, municipal politicians use mainly public investments and projects that are at the level of municipalities so apparent that they may influence voters in their electoral decision-making. Prior to elections, expenditures on investments significantly increase for all municipal size groups. For municipal size groups of over 50,000 residents, however, they are (per capita) higher compared to smaller municipal size groups. This may be explained by the fact that these municipalities have higher disposable resources (higher per capita own budgetary revenues, higher potential to acquire resources to co-finance municipal projects and broader portfolio of debt financing). Expenditures on transfers do not significantly change prior to municipal elections. We interpret this finding in a way that politicians prefer such investment projects that are ""visible"". Transfers are used to pay for certain current expenses for which municipalities may (in accordance with the established rules) apply through grants.

The study is a contribution to the theoretical/empirical analysis of the problem of outsourcing of policy advice in the public administration. It provides the typologies of expenses for policy advice in the public administration and examines the relationship between internal and external expenses on an example of the ministries of the Czech Republic for the period from 2001 to 2011. It shows that extreme changes in the form of increases in expenses for outsourcing arise when an amendment to the Act on Public Contracts is prepared. We explain the problem on the basis of changes in the behaviour of the clients as a result of expected changes to the contracting conditions. The study shows that several factors influence the amount of expenses for the outsourcing of policy advice. The ""large"" ministries have relatively fewer expenses for the outsourcing of policy advice than ""small"" ministries. Ministries that have their own workplaces available in their structures (i.e. in the form of their own scientific research workplaces) have lower than average expenses for the outsourcing of policy advice. Ministries with higher average wages are ministries with a relatively large number of managers in relation to the number of analysts, and thus they implement a higher degree of external services (measured as a share of the wage expenses).

The article deals with the factors which influence efficiency of public procurement in the competitive contracting conducted through e-auctions in 15 Slovak cities. Data cover building and IT contracts awarded in the years 2007-2009. Together 186 observations were used for the analysis. The article starts with a theoretical discussion on the factors influencing efficiency of the procurement including potential impacts of the e-procurement and the e-auction. Than five hypotheses are formulated and the set of data is described. The next part introduces results of the regression analyses. It shows indirect proportion of the relation between the number of the submitted bids and the winning price. Each additional bid brings decrease of the price by approximately 3.4% of the expected price. The use of the e-auctions is connected with an increase of the number of the submitted bids by 0.7, which mean an average decrease of the winning price by approximately 2.4% of the expected price. The article concludes that the application of the e-auctions brings an indirect impact on the winning price. The reason is that it is more transparent than ""standard"" tenders. It probably affects the trust of bidders and increases of their number.