Curbing Agency Problems in the Procurement Process by Protest Oversight
研究政府采购中潜在投标人通过准司法委员会抗议被排除出采购过程的现象，分析了抗议均衡、低效单一来源采购的威慑、过度威慑、买断和解与联邦邮件和解等情形，并对改革抗议程序的立法倡议进行了规范分析。
We study a model in which a potential bidder in a government procurement may challenge its exclusion from the procurement before a quasi-judicial board. In the case of a sole-source procurement, the excluded vendor does not know whether the decision was justified in terms of expected surplus or, alternatively, was due to an agency problem. We explain the occurrence of (i) equilibrium protests, (ii) deterrence of inefficient sole sourcing, (iii) overdeterrence (the choice of a competitive procurement when sole source would be appropriate), (iv) "buyoff" settlements (which preserve inappropriate sole-source procurement), and (v) "fedmail" settlements (which accompany appropriate sole-source procurements). Our normative analysis addresses recent legislative initiatives to reform the protest process.