Government procurement: market access, transparency, and multilateral trade rules

By S. Evenett, Bernard M. Hoekman. 2003

183 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The authors examine the effects on national welfare and market access of two public procurement practices-discrimination against foreign suppliers of goods and services and nontransparency of the procedures used to allocate government contracts to firms. Both types of policies have become prominent in international trade negotiations, including the Doha Round of the World Trade Organization (WTO) trade talks. Traditionally, the focus of international trade agreements has been on market access. However, many developing countries have opposed the launch of negotiations to extend the principle of nondiscrimination to procurement. As a result, the current focus in the Doha Round is on an effort to launch discussions on agreeing to principles of transparency in procurement. While transparency will not constrain the ability of governments to discriminate in favor of domestic firms, it could nonetheless improve market access by reducing corruption. The authors assess and compare the impact of eliminating discrimination and fostering greater domestic competition in procurement markets and enhancing transparency in state contracting. Their analysis concludes that greater domestic competition on procurement markets and greater transparency will improve economic welfare. But there is no clear-cut effect on market access of ending discrimination or improving transparency. This mismatch between market access and welfare effects may account for the slower progress in negotiating procurement disciplines in trade agreements than for traditional border measures such as tariffs, given that market access is the driving force behind trade agreements.

Subfields: Economics and Econometrics, Sociology and Political Science, Strategy and Management

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/f354c27edde42028587adf98721f36263218b8a6

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Economics and Econometrics

1. Wouter P. C. Boon
2. J. Edler
3. M. Ferrantino
4. Elvira Uyarra

In Sociology and Political Science

1. J. Edler
2. M. Ferrantino
3. Wouter P. C. Boon

In Strategy and Management

1. Wouter P. C. Boon
2. J. Edler
3. M. Ferrantino
4. Elvira Uyarra

Citations in the corpus

• Quantifying the Trade and Economic Effects of Non-Tariff Measures (2006, background): “36 discussion of Evenett and Hoekman (2004) of the effects of government procurement rules on market access, though focusing on theoretical and institutional aspects rather than empirical applications, provides useful clues to those interested in designing empirical studies.”
• Procurement issues in Malaysia (2011, unknown): “Based on research done by Evenett and Hoekman (2005), a lack of transparency can impede the ability of new companies to bid for contracts even if there is no discrimination.”
• Demand, challenges, and innovation. Making sense of new trends in innovation policy (2018, background): “First, there is a basic concern of (primarily neo-classical) economists about supporting specific innovation initiatives as these might jeopardise the ‘level playing field’ and discriminate against non-local practices, and which lead to inefficient allocation of resources (Evenett and Hoekman 2005).”