This thesis provides a discussion on some analytical and empirical models of online auctions. The objective is to provide an alternative framework for analyzing online auctions, and to characterize the distribution of intermediate prices. Chapter 1 provides a mathematical formulation of the eBay auction format and background to the data used in the empirical analysis. Chapter 2 analyzes policies for optimally disposing inventory using online auctions. It is assumed a seller has a fixed number of items to sell using a sequence of, possibly overlapping, single-item auctions. The decision the seller must make is when to start each auction. The decision involves a trade-off between a holding cost for each period an item remains unsold, and a cannibalization effect among competing auctions. Consequently the seller must trade-off the expected marginal gain for the ongoing auctions with the expected marginal cost of the unreleased items by further deferring their release. The problem is formulated as a discrete time Markov Decision Problem. Conditions are derived to ensure that the optimal release policy is a control limit policy in the current price of the ongoing auctions. Chapter 2 focuses on the two item case which has sufficient complexity to raise challenging questions. An underlying assumption in Chapter 2 is that the auction dynamics can be captured by a set of transition probabilities. Chapter 3 shows with two fixed bidding strategies how the transition probabilities can be derived for a given auction format and bidder arrival process. The two specific bidding strategies analyzed are when bidders bid: 1) a minimal increment, and 2) their true valuation. Chapters 4 and 5 provides empirical analyzes of 4,000 eBay auctions conducted by Dell. Chapter 4 provides a statistical model where over discrete time periods, prices of online auctions follow a zero-inflated gamma distribution. Chapter 5 provides an analysis of the 44,000 bids placed in the auctions, based on bids following a gamma distribution. Both models presented in Chapters 4 and 5 are based on conditional probabilities given the price and elapsed time of an auction, and certain parameters of the competing auctions. Chapter 6 concludes the thesis with a discussion of the main results and possible extensions.

A falta de qualidade das obras públicas no Brasil povoa os noticiários diários. Os exemplos são abundantes, atribuídos a contratos mal elaborados, falhas graves nos projetos ou mesmo à ausência desses, licitações frustradas, obras interrompidas e superfaturadas, desvios de recursos e corrupção. Tentar compreender melhor essa situação é a motivação desta dissertação, que discorre sobre a contratação pública de projetos de edificações e, para isso, estuda o projeto e sua encomenda. A licitação é um procedimento obrigatório para a celebração de qualquer contrato público. Entre outros requisitos, a lei de licitações exige que a proposta seja a “mais vantajosa” para a administração, algo que tem levado à adoção indiscriminada do critério do “menor preço”, sendo incoerente com a doutrina jurídica e contrariando as pesquisas científicas, que consideram o projeto relevante para a qualidade final da obra. O problema de pesquisa questiona exatamente por que a Administração Pública tem contratado por menor preço um serviço que deveria ser contratado por critérios técnicos e de qualidade? O objetivo da dissertação é propor uma explicação para essa situação a partir de revisão bibliográfica, análise da legislação, realização de pesquisa documental com editais de licitação, aplicação de questionários de opinião com arquitetos e outros atores, além de entrevista direta com o autor da lei de licitações. Finalmente, o trabalho comprova a relevância do projeto, mas também desvenda sua irrelevância identificando que o menor preço não é o único problema e, mesmo que “todos” afirmem ser contra o menor preço, o povo segue pagando caro por projetos baratos. / The qualityless of public works in Brazil is currently in the daily news. Examples of it are plentiful, attributed to poorly drafted contracts, serious failures or even absence of projects, frustrated bids, discontinued and overpriced works, waste of resources and corruption. The motivation of this dissertation is trying to better understand this situation, which focuses on the public contracting of building projects and, for this, studies the project itself and its order. Bidding is a mandatory procedure for obtaining any public contract. Among other requirements, the bidding law requires that the proposal be the "most advantageous" for the administration, which ledded to the indiscriminate adoption of the "lowest price" criteria, incoerent with the juridical doctrine and opposite to scientific research, which consider the project relevant to the final quality of the building work. The research problem questions why the Public Administration has contracted for a lower price a service that should be contracted by technical and quality criteria? The objective of the dissertation is to propose an explanation for this situation from a bibliographical review, an analysis of the legislation, a documental research on bid’s documents, an opinion questionaries applying to architects and other actors, as well as direct interview with the author of the bidding law. Finally, the research proves the relevance of the project, but also reveals its irrelevance by identifying that the lowest price is not the only problem, and even if "everyone" claims to be against the lowest price, people continue to pay expensive for cheap projects.

O presente estudo visa a identificar os limites da discricionariedade administrativa e seu respectivo controle na atuação da Administração ao estabelecer requisitos de habilitação para a participação de licitantes em licitações públicas, sob o regime da Lei n. 8.666/93. No desenvolvimento do estudo fixam-se esses limites para, no fim, identificar mecanismos de controle da discricionariedade. / The study aims to identify the limits of administrative discretion and its control in the administration's performance to establish qualification requirements to bidders in public bidding, under the rule of Statute Law 8.666/93. In the development of the study it's set up these boundaries in order to identify, in the end, the discretion's controlling mechanisms.

A falta de qualidade das obras públicas no Brasil povoa os noticiários diários. Os exemplos são abundantes, atribuídos a contratos mal elaborados, falhas graves nos projetos ou mesmo à ausência desses, licitações frustradas, obras interrompidas e superfaturadas, desvios de recursos e corrupção. Tentar compreender melhor essa situação é a motivação desta dissertação, que discorre sobre a contratação pública de projetos de edificações e, para isso, estuda o projeto e sua encomenda. A licitação é um procedimento obrigatório para a celebração de qualquer contrato público. Entre outros requisitos, a lei de licitações exige que a proposta seja a “mais vantajosa” para a administração, algo que tem levado à adoção indiscriminada do critério do “menor preço”, sendo incoerente com a doutrina jurídica e contrariando as pesquisas científicas, que consideram o projeto relevante para a qualidade final da obra. O problema de pesquisa questiona exatamente por que a Administração Pública tem contratado por menor preço um serviço que deveria ser contratado por critérios técnicos e de qualidade? O objetivo da dissertação é propor uma explicação para essa situação a partir de revisão bibliográfica, análise da legislação, realização de pesquisa documental com editais de licitação, aplicação de questionários de opinião com arquitetos e outros atores, além de entrevista direta com o autor da lei de licitações. Finalmente, o trabalho comprova a relevância do projeto, mas também desvenda sua irrelevância identificando que o menor preço não é o único problema e, mesmo que “todos” afirmem ser contra o menor preço, o povo segue pagando caro por projetos baratos. / The qualityless of public works in Brazil is currently in the daily news. Examples of it are plentiful, attributed to poorly drafted contracts, serious failures or even absence of projects, frustrated bids, discontinued and overpriced works, waste of resources and corruption. The motivation of this dissertation is trying to better understand this situation, which focuses on the public contracting of building projects and, for this, studies the project itself and its order. Bidding is a mandatory procedure for obtaining any public contract. Among other requirements, the bidding law requires that the proposal be the "most advantageous" for the administration, which ledded to the indiscriminate adoption of the "lowest price" criteria, incoerent with the juridical doctrine and opposite to scientific research, which consider the project relevant to the final quality of the building work. The research problem questions why the Public Administration has contracted for a lower price a service that should be contracted by technical and quality criteria? The objective of the dissertation is to propose an explanation for this situation from a bibliographical review, an analysis of the legislation, a documental research on bid’s documents, an opinion questionaries applying to architects and other actors, as well as direct interview with the author of the bidding law. Finally, the research proves the relevance of the project, but also reveals its irrelevance by identifying that the lowest price is not the only problem, and even if "everyone" claims to be against the lowest price, people continue to pay expensive for cheap projects.

Submitted by Tatiana Lima (tatianasl@ufba.br) on 2016-05-24T21:02:00Z No. of bitstreams: 1 REIS, Paulo Ricardo da Costa.pdf: 1671760 bytes, checksum: 238ffc0428e4da85baad0595de2216e4 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Maria Angela Dortas (dortas@ufba.br) on 2016-06-13T17:20:03Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 REIS, Paulo Ricardo da Costa.pdf: 1671760 bytes, checksum: 238ffc0428e4da85baad0595de2216e4 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-06-13T17:20:03Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 REIS, Paulo Ricardo da Costa.pdf: 1671760 bytes, checksum: 238ffc0428e4da85baad0595de2216e4 (MD5) / Ao longo dos últimos anos, vários governos em todo o mundo vêm promovendo transformações para reformar seus sistemas de contratação pública. Nesse sentido, diferentes regulamentações e mecanismos de governança têm sido criados em conformidade com o contexto institucional de cada país. No Brasil, por exemplo, observam-se, desde a implementação da Lei Geral de Licitações em 1993, as experiências ligadas ao desenvolvimento do Portal de Compras do Governo Federal (Comprasnet) para suportar processos eletrônicos de aquisições de vários tipos de bens e serviços, por meio da modalidade pregão, instituída em 2002; a introdução de um programa de preferência para prover apoio às micro e pequenas empresas, implementado através da Lei Geral da Micro e Pequena Empresa de 2006; e a ampliação da discricionariedade dos agentes públicos no processo de contratação, por meio do Regime Diferenciado de Contratação de 2011. Não obstante, em que pesem o número de mudanças empreendidas e a crescente preocupação com aspectos ligados ao desempenho das licitações públicas no Brasil, verifica-se que a produção acadêmica nas áreas de administração e administração pública tem sido limitada. Destarte, utilizando bases de dados únicas, que incluem diferentes modalidades de licitação e diferentes tipos de objetos, obras e serviços adquiridos pela administração pública federal, no presente trabalho, investiga-se o desempenho das compras públicas brasileiras tendo como base as mudanças institucionais, promovidas por novas regulamentações. Os principais resultados sugerem efeitos positivos em cada uma das experiências investigadas, porém, os achados também advertem que elas possuem efeitos distintos nas variáveis de desempenho observadas. Adicionalmente, os resultados indicam que, independente da experiência observada, fatores estratégicos associados ao ambiente competitivo, às capacidades inerentes aos agentes envolvidos nos processos e aos atributos transacionais influenciam o desempenho das compras públicas. Nesse sentido, este trabalho oferece um conjunto de evidências empíricas sobre os resultados alcançados a partir das mudanças institucionais nos procedimentos de compras públicas, e defende a necessidade de melhorias nas ferramentas que estão atualmente à disposição dos gestores de compras públicas Over the last years, governments around the world have been promoting changes to reform their procurement systems. In this direction, different regulations and governance mechanisms have been established in accordance with the institutional context of each country. In Brazil, for example, can be observed from the implementation of the General Public Procurement Law in 1993, the experiences related to the development of Comprasnet (the Brazilian procurement bidding platform) to support electronic processes to purchasing various types of goods and services through reverse auction, established in 2002; the introduction of a preference program to provide support to micro and small enterprises, implemented through the General Micro and Small Enterprise Law in 2006; and the expansion of the discretion in the hiring process through Regime Diferenciado de Contratação in 2011. Nevertheless, despite the number of changes undertaken and the growing concern about the issues linked to performance of public procurement in Brazil, it turns out that academic research in the areas of management and public administration has been limited. Thus, using a unique set of databases that include different types of bidding and different types of objects, works, goods and services purchased by the federal government, the present study investigates the performance of the Brazilian public procurement system based on the institutional changes promoted by the new regulations. The main results suggest positive effects on each of the experiences investigated, but the findings also warn that they have different effects on performance variables observed. Additionally, the results suggest that, regardless of observed experience, strategic factors associated with the competitive environment, the capabilities inherent to the agents involved in the processes and transactional attributes influence the performance of public procurement. In this way, this paper provides a set of empirical evidence on the results achieved from the institutional changes in the Brazilian public procurement procedures, and argues for the need for improvements in the tools that are currently available to public sector procurement offices.

abstract: The objective of the study was to examine the impact construction document deficiencies have on heavy/civil low-bid infrastructure projects. It encompasses the expertise of 202 heavy/civil construction professionals comprised of contactors and public project owners. The study was designed to determine the frequency and timing of when a contractor discovers construction document deficiencies on heavy/civil low bid projects. The information was correlated with further study data of when a contractor ultimately reports the discovered construction document deficiencies to the public project owner. This research data was compiled and analyzed to determine if contractors are withholding construction document deficiencies from public owners until after the project contract has been executed. The withholding of document deficiencies can benefit contractors by resulting in additional owner incurred costs and potential justification for project time extensions. As a result, further research was required to examine the impact construction document deficiencies have on project cost and schedule. Based on the study findings, it has led to the development of a Contractor Document Review Assessment. The Contractor Document Review Assessment is a risk mitigation device in which contractors and public project owners can identify construction document deficiencies on heavy/civil low-bid construction projects before the project contract has been executed. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Construction 2017

O presente estudo visa a identificar os limites da discricionariedade administrativa e seu respectivo controle na atuação da Administração ao estabelecer requisitos de habilitação para a participação de licitantes em licitações públicas, sob o regime da Lei n. 8.666/93. No desenvolvimento do estudo fixam-se esses limites para, no fim, identificar mecanismos de controle da discricionariedade. / The study aims to identify the limits of administrative discretion and its control in the administration's performance to establish qualification requirements to bidders in public bidding, under the rule of Statute Law 8.666/93. In the development of the study it's set up these boundaries in order to identify, in the end, the discretion's controlling mechanisms.

Este trabalho compreende a análise e avaliação dos critérios de adjudicação de portos e terminais introduzidos pelo novo marco regulatório do setor portuário brasileiro. O objetivo principal consiste em avaliar se a aplicação na prática desses critérios deverá levar ao alcance dos objetivos da alteração do marco regulatório, a partir da MP 595/2012, depois convertida na Lei 12.815/2013: o aumento da oferta de capacidade e a redução dos custos portuários. A metodologia empregada consiste principalmente na revisão bibliográfica e na análise documental dos instrumentos legais e infralegais que regem o tema, bem como das minutas de editais e contratos dos primeiros arrendamentos de instalações que se prevê licitar sob os novos critérios de adjudicação. Dada a previsão de adoção de regulação econômica em parte significativa dos novos arrendamentos, discutem-se também aspectos da competição portuária e formas de regulação. Aborda-se ainda, resumidamente, outros aspectos que foram alterados a partir da MP 595/2012, especialmente a flexibilização dos requisitos para a outorga de autorização a terminais de uso privado e a centralização dos processos de arrendamentos nos órgãos setoriais (SEP e ANTAQ), em detrimento das autoridades portuárias. Conclui-se que os critérios de seleção a serem utilizados na prática em novos arrendamentos, a maior capacidade efetiva de movimentação e a menor tarifa, embora alinhados com os objetivos iniciais do novo marco regulatório, apresentam riscos à efetiva consecução desses objetivos. Enxerga-se um risco maior no caso das licitações com base na menor tarifa, em que a ausência de pisos para as tarifas nos leilões torna operadores verticalizados os vencedores naturais do processo nesse caso, a menor tarifa ofertada não deverá, na prática, resultar em menores custos aos usuários, já que a redução do valor no leilão pode ser repassada a outro elo da cadeia. / This study comprises the analysis of the criteria to be used in the concession of seaports and seaport terminals under the new Brazilian ports law. The studys main objective is to analyze if the application of these criteria will lead to the objectives that governed the change in the ports law, introduced by the Provisional Measure 595/2012, after converted in Law 12.815/2013: the increase of port capacity and the reduction of port costs. The methodology applied was mainly the research of the bibliography of the subject and the documental analysis of legal and infralegal instruments that govern the issue in Brazil, as well as the drafts of the bid documents of the first seaport terminals to be conceded under the new criteria. Aspects of port competition and regulation are also discussed, given the forecasted adoption of tariff regulation in a relevant part of the new port terminals concessions. The study also approaches other aspects that the Provisional Measure 595/2012 has changed, especially the reduction of the requirements for private terminals to be authorized and the centralization of seaport terminals concession procedures, which were former responsibilities from the Port Authorities, in federal bodies (SEP and ANTAQ). The conclusion of the study is that, despite being aligned with government initial objectives, the criteria to be applied highest throughput commitment or lowest tariff offer risks to the effective achievement of these objectives. The risk is higher in the bids based on the lower tariff, in which the absence of floors for the tariffs make vertically integrated players the natural winners of the bidding process in this case, the lower tariff offered will probably not result in lower costs for port users, once the reduction in the port tariff can be passed on to other links of the chain.

O presente estudo visa a identificar os limites da discricionariedade administrativa e seu respectivo controle na atuação da Administração ao estabelecer requisitos de habilitação para a participação de licitantes em licitações públicas, sob o regime da Lei n. 8.666/93. No desenvolvimento do estudo fixam-se esses limites para, no fim, identificar mecanismos de controle da discricionariedade. / The study aims to identify the limits of administrative discretion and its control in the administration's performance to establish qualification requirements to bidders in public bidding, under the rule of Statute Law 8.666/93. In the development of the study it's set up these boundaries in order to identify, in the end, the discretion's controlling mechanisms.

This thesis provides a discussion on some analytical and empirical models of online auctions. The objective is to provide an alternative framework for analyzing online auctions, and to characterize the distribution of intermediate prices. Chapter 1 provides a mathematical formulation of the eBay auction format and background to the data used in the empirical analysis. Chapter 2 analyzes policies for optimally disposing inventory using online auctions. It is assumed a seller has a fixed number of items to sell using a sequence of, possibly overlapping, single-item auctions. The decision the seller must make is when to start each auction. The decision involves a trade-off between a holding cost for each period an item remains unsold, and a cannibalization effect among competing auctions. Consequently the seller must trade-off the expected marginal gain for the ongoing auctions with the expected marginal cost of the unreleased items by further deferring their release. The problem is formulated as a discrete time Markov Decision Problem. Conditions are derived to ensure that the optimal release policy is a control limit policy in the current price of the ongoing auctions. Chapter 2 focuses on the two item case which has sufficient complexity to raise challenging questions. An underlying assumption in Chapter 2 is that the auction dynamics can be captured by a set of transition probabilities. Chapter 3 shows with two fixed bidding strategies how the transition probabilities can be derived for a given auction format and bidder arrival process. The two specific bidding strategies analyzed are when bidders bid: 1) a minimal increment, and 2) their true valuation. Chapters 4 and 5 provides empirical analyzes of 4,000 eBay auctions conducted by Dell. Chapter 4 provides a statistical model where over discrete time periods, prices of online auctions follow a zero-inflated gamma distribution. Chapter 5 provides an analysis of the 44,000 bids placed in the auctions, based on bids following a gamma distribution. Both models presented in Chapters 4 and 5 are based on conditional probabilities given the price and elapsed time of an auction, and certain parameters of the competing auctions. Chapter 6 concludes the thesis with a discussion of the main results and possible extensions. / Business, Sauder School of / Graduate