This paper investigates joint bidding when firms have incentives to sign subcontracts with each other after competing in the bidding stage. A bidding consortium affects the horizontal subcontracting market and, through backward induction, alters firms’ bids. Our findings challenge the current legal practice that consortia without efficiencies must pass the “no-solo-bidding test”, requiring that its members could not bid stand-alone. Our framework predicts that the formation of a temporary consortium, which has the feature that it dissolves after submitting a losing bid, benefits the procurer. The winning bid is more competitive with a temporary as compared to a structural consortium.

本文研究了在竞标阶段竞争后企业有动力彼此签订分包合同的激励机制。竞标财团会影响横向分包市场，并通过向后归纳来改变企业的竞标。我们的发现挑战了当前的法律惯例，即效率低下的财团必须通过“禁止单独竞标”，要求其成员不能独立竞标。我们的框架预测，临时财团的形成将使采购者受益，该财团的特征是在提交失败的投标书后便解散。与结构性财团相比，中标的竞标者更具竞争优势。