Procuring medical devices: evidence from Italian public tenders

Vincenzo Atella and Francesco Decarolis

International Journal of Computational Economics and Econometrics, 2024, vol. 14, issue 2, 103-121

Abstract: The public procurement of medical devices is increasingly relying on auction mechanisms to move toward more transparent procedures and to promote competition between suppliers in a market where the quality of the products matters enormously. An improper auction design could lead to inefficient outcomes, such as a market with higher-than-optimal prices, or lower-than-optimal quality. Based on Italian public tender data, we present new evidence on the performance of the public tenders to procure orthopaedic prosthesis for hips, knees and shoulders. Focusing on three main outcomes, the number of participants, the presence of a single firm bidding and the winning rebate, for the first time we describe how features related to the tender, hospital, region and bidders' competition all contribute to explain the functioning of the procurement auctions. The evidence we obtain can meaningfully help policymakers in designing and implementing better public procurement systems.

Keywords: procurement auctions; medical devices; orthopaedic prosthesis; tender characteristics; Italy. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.inderscience.com/link.php?id=137914 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
Working Paper: Procuring Medical Devices: Evidence from Italian Public Tenders (2019)
Working Paper: Procuring Medical Devices: Evidence from Italian Public Tenders (2019)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ids:ijcome:v:14:y:2024:i:2:p:103-121

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in International Journal of Computational Economics and Econometrics from Inderscience Enterprises Ltd
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sarah Parker ().