关于公共采购的见解

Insights about Public Procurement: Key Findings from theB-READY Project Antoni Albert Nogués Comas and Kerenny Torres Negrón1 his Brief examines regulatory indicators that promote firm entry, ease of contracting with thegovernment, fairness, transparency, and best value for money in public procurement systems across 50economies. Drawing on indicators from the novel Public Procurement category under the MarketCompetition topic of the World Bank’s Business Ready (B-READY) project, the analysis developsComposite Procurement Category scores categorized by economy income level. This approach offers a newperspective on considering procurement regulations and services from a competition standpoint. The studypresents the current conditions and reveals that good practices in fostering competition in public procurement canbe adopted and implemented regardless of an economy's income level. Findings show a significant variation in theadoption of digital procurement, which affects transparency and entry barriers, as well as disparities in genderrepresentation, which weakens competition and dynamism in these markets.TPublic Disclosure Authorized Public procurement refers to the process by which centralgovernments, regional or local authorities, purchase work, goods,orservicesfromcompanies.Thegovernment,throughitssignificant and discretionary demand, wields considerable power toshapemarkets,drivecompetition,andfosterdynamism,potentiallyleadingtoinnovation,efficiency,andgrowth.Byutilizing public procurement as a powerful tool, governments canachieve cost-effective social and economic policy objectives. Forexample,amodernpublicprocurementsystem,designedtoprovide access to all firms by removing entry and informationalbarriers in government markets, is associated with higher firmparticipation in tenders (Hjort et al. 2020; Knack, Biletska, andKacker 2019); lower prices (Adam, Sanchez, and Fazekas 2021);,greater innovation; and more sustainable solutions.Public Disclosure Authorized support firms that participate in public procurement can createbarriers that lead to fewer bids in public tenders. Single-bidderpublic procurement tenders (excluding framework agreements anddirect negotiation) reached a ten-year high in the European Union(EU) in 2022, according to the 2023 EU Commission's SingleMarket Scoreboard. While different mechanisms might influencethis outcome, research using Tenders Electronically Daily (TED)data shows that fewer bids are observed in settings where the qualityof procurement systems is low (Tas 2020), suggesting the sizeableopportunity for improvements even in high-income economies.Forthis,actionablemeasuresmustbederivedusingacomprehensiveanalyticalframework.TheMethodologyforAssessing Procurement Systems (MAPS), while being the goldstandardforassessingprocurementsystems,producesfewassessments annually due to its comprehensive scope and depth,highlightingtheneedforcomplementaryindicatorsthatareregularly updated. Because public procurement is an essential function in publicadministration,nearlyallmoderneconomieshaveenactedprocurement rules or regulations, with 73 percent adopting digitalplatformstocarryouttheseprocesses(WorldBankPublicProcurement Database 2020). However, the effectiveness of thepublic procurement process in encouraging tender participation,competition, and innovation depends largely on the quality of itsregulatory design and the complementarity of public services.Research shows that better procurement regulations significantlyboost bidder participation and increases fiscal savings (Hoekmanand Taş 2022, Iimi 2006), with e-procurement among the policyinterventionswiththegreatestpositiveimpactinpromotingcompetition (Adam, Sanchez, and Fazekas 2021; Lewis-Faupel etal. 2016).Public Disclosure Authorized Measuring and benchmarking conditions conducive to higherfirmparticipationintendersrequiresapracticaloverarchingapproachthatquantifiesindicatorsannuallyintocomparablescores. Several efforts to diagnose and measure deficiencies incompetition in public procurement have considered large-scaleadministrative data focused on competitive outcomes. But lack ofstandardization, and of concrete actionable items that can betracked by policy makers, as well as poor availability of quality datafor lower-income economies, makes existing databases impracticalto inform governments. Relying solely on administrative data alsoignores the perceptions of firms, which play an important role intheir decision to participate in tenders (Colonnelli, Loiacono,Muhumuza, and Teso 2024; Cocciolo, Viganola, and Doino2024). Even in markets with many capable suppliers, deficiencies in theregulatory framework or in the provision of public services to Bridgingthisgap,theWorldBankhasusedexpertquestionnairestobenchmarkkeyregulationsandbuildeconomy-level data sets that expand coverage to include developingeconomies. The Benchmarking Public Procurement report (WorldBank 2017a) and the Contracting with the Government indicatorin th