Delays at the Border: Court Efficiency and Delays in Public Contracts

Francesco Decarolis, Gianpiero Mattera and Carlo Menon ()

No 14856, CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers

Abstract: The inefficiency of the judicial system might affect the extent of delays in the execution of public contracts. We leverage on the large variation in the average length of civil proceedings across Italian jurisdictions and a granular dataset of public contracts to apply a border-discontinuity design strategy. Using a quantile regression approach, we uncover a non-linear, causal effect of court inefficiency: slower courts decrease delays at the lowest two deciles of the delay distribution, and increase delays in the top three deciles of the distribution. These findings fit a framework where contract enforcement is a key driver of contract performance.

Keywords: Court efficiency; Public procurement; Spatial discontinuity; Quantile regression (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H11 H57 K41 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eff and nep-law
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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