Estimados Académicos y Académicas FEN,

Les extendemos la invitación al seminario que organiza el Departamento de Economía, en el que se presentará el trabajo titulado "Centralizing procurement: The roles of scale, selection and variety".

Expone: Juan Pablo Atal, Universidad Penn.

Abstract: Centralized procurement intends to lower prices through scale effects but may decrease variety and thus fail to accommodate buyers with heterogeneous preferences. Moreover, buyer voluntary participation may result in adverse selection into intermediation when costs are heterogeneous, limiting its gains. We study these mechanisms in the context of public procurement for pharmaceuticals in Chile. Through a combination of reduced-form analyses and a structural model, we find sizable scale effects, substantial preference heterogeneity, and cost heterogeneity. We use our model to evaluate the desirability of introducing minimum centralized procurement mandates as recently introduced in the country.

El formato será presencial y el seminario se desarrollará en la Sala P-304.

Saludos cordiales,

Dirección de Investigación