English
French procurement contracts are usually awarded by fixed-price contracts. However, fixed prices can be raised by change orders that occur after the contract is signed. The authors develop a model of this procedure that gives an explanation for low-ball bidding strategies and cost overruns. Then the authors show that this procedure can yield an expected price lower than the optimal linear incentive contract of McAfee and McMillan (1986).
Keywords
- incentive contracts
- fixed
- price contracts
- change orders