Improving Public Procurement Outcomes : Review of Tools and the State of the Evidence Base
Considering that about 15 percent of global gross domestic product flows through public procurement systems, the lack of systematic evidence on what works in this field is a major challenge for effective policy making. Hence, this paper systematica...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Working Paper |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2021
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/656521623167062285/Improving-Public-Procurement-Outcomes-Review-of-Tools-and-the-State-of-the-Evidence-Base http://hdl.handle.net/10986/35727 |
| Summary: | Considering that about 15 percent of
global gross domestic product flows through public
procurement systems, the lack of systematic evidence on what
works in this field is a major challenge for effective
policy making. Hence, this paper systematically reviews the
state of the evidence on major public procurement reforms
and their impact on value for money and open access to
public tenders. It discusses the reliably identified costs
and benefits and systematically evaluates the quality of the
evidence base, relying on academic and policy literature.
The quality of evidence on the impact of public procurement
interventions is mediocre, with reliable evidence
established in multiple countries using diverse analytical
methods only for selective, typically narrow tools. Although
there is a range of policy tools with global policy interest
and extensive implementation record, these have received
little to no evaluation. As high-quality research uses
different outcome measures, comparing intervention
effectiveness is only possible for a very narrow outcome:
savings. Comparing intervention types according to their
effects on savings, centralized procurement and framework
agreements stand out with the largest effects, over 50
percent. Most other intervention types were documented to
achieve about 5-10 percent price savings if they were well
implemented. Given the estimated US$11 trillion spent on
procurement annually around the world, even savings of 1
percent amounts to US$110 billion annually. This systematic
review points out that research on e-procurement and its
variants, transparency portals, civil society supervision,
and opening up the black box of public management, among
others, would deserve considerably more research going forward. |
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