TY  - JOUR
AU  - Moszoro,Marian W.
AU  - Spiller,Pablo T.
TI  - Third-Party Opportunism and the Nature of Public Contracts
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 18636
PY  - 2012
Y2  - December 2012
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w18636
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w18636.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Marian W. Moszoro
IESE Business School
Barcelona, Spain
E-Mail: mmoszoro@iese.edu

Pablo T. Spiller
University of California
Walter A. Haas School of Business
Faculty Bldg. 593
Berkeley, CA 94720
Tel: 510/642-1502
Fax: 510/642-2826
E-Mail: spiller@haas.berkeley.edu
AB  - The lack of flexibility in public procurement design and implementation reflects public agents' political risk adaptation to limit hazards from opportunistic third parties – political opponents, competitors, interest groups – while externalizing the associated adaptation costs to the public at large. Reduced flexibility limits the likelihood of opportunistic challenge lowering third parties' expected gains and increasing litigation costs. We provide a comprehensible theoretical framework with empirically testable predictions.
ER  -