Research

The newer the better? Mayor changes and procurement outcomes (with Adrien Deschamps)

This paper examines the effects of mayor changes on municipal procurement outcomes, using a novel data base of public procurement in France over years 2015-2023. Relevant outcomes include competition, identity of winning bidders and the reliability of reporting of procurement data by municipal authorities. To obtain causal estimates for the effect of mayor changes,  we rely on close races in the 2014 and 2020 municipal elections, and use state-of-the art regression discontinuity design estimation. We find that electoral turnovers reduce the number of bidders in procurement auctions, and increase the pervasiveness of technical criteria in awarding public contracts. These results contradict those found in a similar study on Italian data and may shed light on the specificity of the French institutional context. 

Bargaining power, repeated interactions and renegotiations: evidence from long-term public contracts

This work examines how time in business affects the relative bargaining powers of parties in long term public-private partnerships. Using a novel data set of renegotiation outcomes in the French parking lot industry, I find that long standing relationships allow for more frequent renegotiations in favor of the private contractor. Specifically, I show that municipalities are less able to obtain renegotiations in periods of financial stress in long standing relationships. On the other hand, I show that the ability for the private operator to renegotiate pre-existing contracts after being awarded a new deal increases with time in business. Overall, these results suggest that repeatedly awarding contracts to the same firm may increase its ability to extract rents.

Manager identity and contract rigidity

This study examines whether the identity of private company managers is relevant when drafting public-private arrangements. I test a hypothesis, inspired by relational contract theory, that parties are more likely to write flexible, low-detail arrangements when they are able to trust one another. Using manager changes as disruptions in these relational contracts, and using text analysis methods to proxy contract rigidity, I find that contracts signed with newly appointed managers tend to be written more rigidly. These results suggest that trust and identity are relevant in defining the level of transaction costs to which public-private arrangements are subjected.