Detecting Large-Scale Collusion in Procurement Auctions

• 成果类型: Article; Early Access
• 署名作者: Kawai, Kei; Nakabayashi, Jun
• 署名单位: University of California System; University of California Berkeley; Kindai University (Kinki University)
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF POLITICAL ECONOMY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0022-3808
• DOI: 10.1086/718913
• 发表日期: 2022
• 关键词: competition; MODEL

摘要

We document evidence of widespread collusion among construction firms in Japan using a novel data set covering most of the construction projects procured by the Japanese national government. Our data set contains information on about 42,000 auctions whose award amount sums to about $40 billion. We identify collusion by focusing on rebids that occur for auctions in which all (initial) bids fail to meet the secret reserve price. We identify more than 1,000 firms whose conduct is inconsistent with competitive behavior. These bidders were awarded about 15,000 projects, or about 37% of the total number of projects in our sample.