Procurement when price and quality matter

John Asker and Estelle Cantillon

ULB Institutional Repository from ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles

Abstract: A buyer seeks to procure a good characterized by its price and its quality from suppliers who have private information about their cost structure ( xed cost and marginal cost of providing quality). We characterize the buyers optimal buying mechanism. We then use the optimal mechanism as a theoretical and numerical benchmark to study simpler buying procedures such as scoring auctions and bargaining. Scoring auctions can extract a signifi cant proportion of the buyers strategic surplus (the difference between the expected utility from the optimal mechanism and the e¢ cient auction). Bargaining does less well and often does worse than the e¢ cient auction.

Date: 2010
Note: FLWIN
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (98)

Published in: The Rand journal of economics (2010) v.41 n° 1,p.1-34

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Related works:
Journal Article: Procurement when price and quality matter (2010)
Working Paper: Procurement when Price and Quality Matter (2007)
Working Paper: Procurement When Price and Quality Matter (2006)
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