A quantitative analysis of the competition process in public purchases of Pelotas' reverse auctions

Abstract

This work aimed to evaluate which factors determine the competition, measured by the winners’ number in each event, of the public bids held by the Municipality of Pelotas. The analysis was conducted taking the period from 2016 to 2017, observing the bids in the presential or electronic reverse auction format, aimed at the acquisition of common goods and services by the Public Administration at the lowest possible price. To achieve this goal, a database was built with information referring to 591 reverse auctions sessions available on the virtual page of the Rio Grande do Sul Province Court of Accounts and the Poisson regression model was applied. In summary, the results show that the monetary value of the public bid has a positive effect on the number of winners, with the increase of one unit of this variable increasing the number of winners on average by 12%. However, the impact of the contest has presented frustrated items reduces the number of winners on average by 30%. Additionally, it was found that the two-month increase in the time between the launch and the approval of the public bid on average has a positive impact of approximately 25% on the number of winners. These findings may suggest that purchases with a higher value and with a longer term may favor Public Administration in increasing competition and consequently in obtaining a lower unit price.