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- Bergman, Mats A., 1964-, et al.
(författare)
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Choice and Competition in the Welfare State : Home Care as the Ideal Quasi-market
- 2018
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Rapport (populärvet., debatt m.m.)abstract
- We study a reform by which a standardized model of choice and competition was introduced in tax-financed home care in a majority of Swedish municipalities. The market for home care is of particular interest since it is close to the ideal quasi-market. For identification, we exploit the different timing of reform implementation across municipalities. We find that the introduction of free choice and free entry in home care increased perceived quality by about one quarter of a standard deviation without affecting costs. Since satisfaction is unrelated to the private market share, the underlying mechanism seems to be new choice opportunities rather than competition or an advantage of private providers.
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| 4. |
- Bergman, Mats, 1964-, et al.
(författare)
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Public Procurement and Non-contractible Quality : Evidence from Elderly Care
- 2012
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Many quality dimensions are hard to contract upon and are at risk of degradation when the service is procured rather than produced in-house. On the other hand, procurement may foster performance-improving innovation. We assemble a large data set on elderly care services in Sweden for the 1990-2009 period, including survival rates, our measure of non-contractible quality, and indicators of subjectively perceived quality of service. We estimate the effects of municipalities’ decision to procure rather than produce in-house on non-contractible quality using a difference-in-difference approach and controlling for a number of other potential determinants. The results indicate that procurement significantly increases non-contractible quality as measured by survival rate, reduces the cost per resident but does not affect subjectively perceived quality.
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| 5. |
- Bergman, Mats, 1964-, et al.
(författare)
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Tendering Design when Price and Quality Is Uncertain : Theory and Evidence from Public Procurement
- 2014
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Departing from a simple normative theory for the choice between lowest price, highest quality (beauty contest) and more complex scoring rules, we empirically investigate the behavior of local and central authorities. We survey a gross sample of 40 contracting entities about perceived key characteristics of products bought in 651 public procurements and collect data on supplier selection methods for these procurements. We compare actual scoring rules with theoretical norms and analyze what product characteristics make deviation from the norm more or less likely. In addition, a control group of 275 authorities was surveyed about similar but hypothetical procurements. We find that more complex scoring rules are used more often when the authority is uncertain about costs and about delivered quality, in accordance with our hypotheses. However, authority effects are also found to directly and indirectly influence the choice of supplier-selection method, suggesting that tendering design is partially driven by local habits or institutional inertia.
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- Lundberg, Sofia, 1969-
(författare)
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Restrictions on Competition in Municipal Competitive Procurement in Sweden
- 2005
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Ingår i: International Advances in Economic Research. - Umeå : CERUM, Umeå universitet. - 1083-0898 .- 1573-966X. ; 11:3, s. 329-342
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The bidding process in public procurement in Sweden is a first-price sealed bid auction. Although there is a competitive effect on the bids in this type of auction, the contracting entity can through the choice of procurement procedure, restrict the number of bidders. This paper studies this choice and imposes an implementation cost on the contracting entity to motivate such a restriction. The results, based on data for Swedish municipalities, suggest that contract specifications and municipality characteristics (that are assumed to influence the implementation cost); affect the volume of the procurement and the number of bidders, but not necessarily the choice of procurement procedure.
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| 7. |
- Bergman, Mats, 1964-, et al.
(författare)
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Auctioned and re-auctioned children in 19th century Sweden
- 2000
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- During the 19th century, poor and orphan Swedish children were boarded out. The foster-parents, compensation was determined in English auctions. Some children were re-auctioned. We use historical data from such auctions to study whether informational asymmetry and possibly adverse selection affected the outcome in the market for re-auctioned children. The empirical findings are consistent with some informational asymmetry.
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| 8. |
- Bergman, Mats, 1964-, et al.
(författare)
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Privatization and quality : evidence from elderly care in Sweden
- 2014
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Non-contractible quality dimensions are at risk of degradation when the provision of public services is privatized. However, privatization may increase quality by fostering performance-improving innovation, particularly if combined with increased competition. We assemble a large data set on elderly care services in Sweden between 1990 and 2009 and estimate how opening to private provision affected mortality rates--an important and not easily contractible quality dimension--using a difference-in-difference-in-difference approach. The results indicate that privatization and the associated increase in competition significantly improved non-contractible quality as measured by mortality rates. It also reduced the cost per resident, although left total cost unaffected.
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| 9. |
- Bergman, Mats, 1964-, et al.
(författare)
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Tender evaluation and award methodologies in public procurement
- 2011
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The EU procurement directives stipulate that public contracts are awarded to the lowest bidder or to the bidder with the economically most advantageous offer; the latter requiring that a scoring rule must be specified. We provide a simple theoretical framework for tender evaluation and discuss the pros and cons of common scoring rules, e.g., highest quality (beauty contest) and price-and-quality-based evaluation. Some descriptive facts are presented for a sample of Swedish public procurements. We argue that the most common method, price-to-quality scoring, is flawed for several reasons. It is non-transparent, making accurate representation of the procurer’s preferences difficult. It is often open to strategic manipulation, due to dependence on irrelevant alternatives, and it is unreasonably non-linear in bid prices. We prefer quality-to-price scoring, where money values are assigned to different quality levels. When the costs of quality are relatively well-known, however, lowest price is the preferable award criteria.
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| 10. |
- Brännlund, Runar, 1957-, et al.
(författare)
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Assessment of green public procurement as a policy tool : Cost-efficiency and competition considerations
- 2009
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Public procurement is officially regarded as an effective means to secure environmental improvement. Estimates by the European Commission indicate that public authorities within the European Union typically purchase goods and services corresponding to approximately 16 percent of GNP per annum. Hence, it is believed, private firms can be stimulated to invest in sustainable production technologies if the market power of public bodies is exerted through Green Public Procurement (GPP) policies. In this paper we assess whether GPP is a cost-efficient policy tool, and if so whether its implementation can, from a welfare perspective, deter or stimulate entry to procurement markets.
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