Opportunistic behavior in public bidding of agricultural products in IFSULDEMINAS - Campus Inconfidentes

Abstract

This study is based on the theory of transaction costs (TCT) to analyze the opportunistic behavior of suppliers in public purchases of agricultural products provided by the private sector. We argue that among the public purchasing modalities, the electronic auction, although using the principles of the reverse English auction and considered as a market structure governance driven by price, presents opportunistic behavior at the time of bidding by the seller, until the closing of the contract with the buyer. We analyzed the differences in price quotations and the closing price of 20 agricultural products purchased in electronic auction of public bidding processes in comparison to the bid prices and of references between the years 2014 to 2017 in the Federal Institute Sul de Minas - Campus Inconfidentes. The results show that there was a discount in the biddings between the years 2014 and 2017, since the repetition of bids in electronic auction forced the reduction of prices by the suppliers. However, it was possible to note opportunism by some agents, in the items in which the public agency under study did not fully specify the bidding product.