Third-Party Opportunism and the Nature of Public Contracts
    Working Paper 18636
  
        
    DOI 10.3386/w18636
  
        
    Issue Date 
  
          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.
- 
        
- 
      Copy CitationMarian W. Moszoro and Pablo T. Spiller, "Third-Party Opportunism and the Nature of Public Contracts," NBER Working Paper 18636 (2012), https://doi.org/10.3386/w18636.
 
     
    