Data for over 2,000 highway pavement projects, constructed between 2014 and 2020, are used to examine the effect of Kentucky’s prevailing wage repeal in 2017 on relative bid costs and bid competition for state and federally funded work. Other than Davis-Bacon and Disadvantaged Business Enterprise policies for federal projects, and prevailing wage requirements on state-funded work prior to 2017, all highway construction in Kentucky is built to the same standard. A difference-in-differences and fixed effects analysis fails to find statistically significant differences in bid costs and competition between federal and state projects before and after repeal. Competition on pavement projects in Kentucky is very low compared to other states. Consequently, the impact of increased competition on bid costs is very high. Policies increasing competition in Kentucky would be more effective in reducing costs than prevailing wage repeal.

2014 年至 2020 年间建造的 2,000 多个公路路面项目的数据用于检查肯塔基州 2017 年现行工资废除对州和联邦资助工程的相对投标成本和投标竞争的影响。除了针对联邦项目的戴维斯-培根和弱势商业企业政策，以及 2017 年之前国家资助工作的现行工资要求外，肯塔基州的所有高速公路建设都是按照相同的标准建造的。差异差异和固定效应分析未能发现废除前后联邦和州项目之间投标成本和竞争的统计显着差异。与其他州相比，肯塔基州的路面项目竞争非常低。因此，竞争加剧对投标成本的影响非常大。