The Effect of Electronic Auctions on Competition: In Public Procurement's for Pharmaceutical and Medicinal Products in European Union

This research makes an inquiry about how electronic auctions affect the competitiveness in public procurements. It was conducted by observing the number of offers and the ratio of contract value over estimated value in procurements. Using data from the European Union Open Data Portal (Tenders Electronic Daily (TED)) for the time period between the years 2012 and 2014 about the public procurements for the Pharmaceutical and Medicinal Products, two empirical models are designed. First model is about the total effect of the electronic auction method on competitiveness and shows that it increases the competitiveness of public procurements about 6.67 percent. On the other hand, second model presents that electronic auction method decreases the number of offers in procurements by 1.21. It is observed that this method boosts the attractiveness of procurements; however, it extends the process. This extension is one of the main reasons for why contracting entities use electronic auction method in procurements very rarely