Are bid preferences benign? The effect of small business subsidies in highway procurement auctions

Bid preferences in procurement auctions allow firms from an identifiable group an advantage in bidding against unfavored firms. While economic efficiency is expected to fall as a result of bid preferences, government procurement costs may either increase or decrease depending on the competitive response of favored and unfavored firms. This paper uses data from California auctions for road construction contracts, where small businesses receive a 5-percent bid preference in auctions for projects using only state funds and no preferential treatment on projects using federal aid. I show that while firms' bidding behavior matches theoretical predictions, procurement costs are 3.8 percent higher on auctions using preferences. The higher procurement cost in preference auctions is attributed to reduced participation by lower cost large firms.Structural estimates of latent firm costs are then used to evaluate how efficiency and the division of surplus between firms and the government are impacted by bid preferences. Firm profits are 3.1 percent lower under bid preferences, however this is overwhelmed by the efficiency loss due to reduced large firm participation. The efficiency loss conditional on firm participation is estimated to represent around 0.1 percent of overall procurement costs. Including the adverse effect of preferences on the participation of large firms increases the estimated efficiency loss to 3.6 percent, which represents 27 cents for each additional dollar awarded to small businesses through the program. Counterfactual simulations indicate that if participation were instead inelastic to bid preferences, the 5-percent bid preference would be close to the optimal level.