Matilla García, MarianoVega, Pilar2025-01-102025-01-102024-08-05Matilla-García, M., & Vega, P. (2024). An empirical analysis of the impacts of competition on procurement costs. Applied Economics, 1–16.1466-4283https://doi.org/10.1080/00036846.2024.2382934https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14468/25203The registered version of this article, first published in Applied Economics, is available online at the publisher's website: Taylor and Francis Group, Routledge, https://doi.org/10.1080/00036846.2024.2382934La versión registrada de este artículo, publicado por primera vez en Applied Economics, está disponible en línea en el sitio web del editor: Taylor and Francis Group, Routledge, https://doi.org/10.1080/00036846.2024.2382934This paper empirically analyses the effect of a competitive environment on the cost of procurement. We exploit a dataset based on the Spanish procurement award notices for the years 2012–2017. After controlling for possible endogeneity, we show that a more competitive environment significantly reduces the cost of Spanish procurement. In particular, the use of the open procedure, the most competitive one, would reduce the procurement price by 9.9%, while the increase by one unit of the number of participants would on average lead to a 2.1% decrease in the procurement price. Consequently, a more extensive use of the open procedure would generate savings of €354 millions per year. These findings can have an important effect on the public deficit of a country.eninfo:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess53 Ciencias Económicasartículoprocurementpublic procurementcompetition effectsauctions