TY - JOUR
T1 - Language as a barrier to entry
T2 - Foreign competition in Georgian public procurement
AU - Deltas, George
AU - Evenett, Simon
N1 - Funding Information:
This paper was previously circulated under the title “Language as a Trade Barrier: Evidence from Georgian Public Procurement.” Detailed comments by the Editor, Frank Verboven, and two anonymous referees for comments have helped improve the paper. We benefited from discussions with Elena Andreou, Xiaogang Che, Louis Christofides, Sofronis Clerides, Robert Duval-Hernández, Raffi Garcia, Jose Moraga, Daniel Quigley, Ketki Sheth, Alexa Tiemann, Nikolaos Tsakas, and Theofanis Tsoulouhas. Erekle Rosebishvili and Piotr Lukaszuk provided expert research assistance. Davit Jaiani provided us with invaluable guidance on the Georgian procurement process, and on the primary data and its collection. We would also like to thank seminar participants at European Association for Research in Industrial Economics conference (EARIE), the European Conference in Competition and Regulation (CRESSE), the International Industrial Organization Conference (IIOC), the Lancaster Conference on Auctions, Competition, Regulation, and Public Policy, the University of California at Merced, and at the University of Cyprus for helpful comments. Financial support by the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development is gratefully acknowledged. We alone remain responsible for content of this manuscript, the views contained therein, and any errors and omissions.
Funding Information:
This paper was previously circulated under the title ?Language as a Trade Barrier: Evidence from Georgian Public Procurement.? Detailed comments by the Editor, Frank Verboven, and two anonymous referees for comments have helped improve the paper. We benefited from discussions with Elena Andreou, Xiaogang Che, Louis Christofides, Sofronis Clerides, Robert Duval-Hern?ndez, Raffi Garcia, Jose Moraga, Daniel Quigley, Ketki Sheth, Alexa Tiemann, Nikolaos Tsakas, and Theofanis Tsoulouhas. Erekle Rosebishvili and Piotr Lukaszuk provided expert research assistance. Davit Jaiani provided us with invaluable guidance on the Georgian procurement process, and on the primary data and its collection. We would also like to thank seminar participants at European Association for Research in Industrial Economics conference (EARIE), the European Conference in Competition and Regulation (CRESSE), the International Industrial Organization Conference (IIOC), the Lancaster Conference on Auctions, Competition, Regulation, and Public Policy, the University of California at Merced, and at the University of Cyprus for helpful comments. Financial support by the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development is gratefully acknowledged. We alone remain responsible for content of this manuscript, the views contained therein, and any errors and omissions.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 Elsevier B.V.
Copyright:
Copyright 2020 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 2020/12
Y1 - 2020/12
N2 - Provision of government contract information in English reduces the barriers to participation by foreign suppliers. We measure this effect using data from the country of Georgia, where English translations of government tenders were provided above specified contract size thresholds, which varied over time and across contract types. The provision of English documentation more than doubles foreign company participation for low value contracts, and leads to smaller, though still substantial, increases for higher value contracts. Because foreign bidder participation in Georgia is relatively small, the resulting impact on prices is in the order of only one percent.
AB - Provision of government contract information in English reduces the barriers to participation by foreign suppliers. We measure this effect using data from the country of Georgia, where English translations of government tenders were provided above specified contract size thresholds, which varied over time and across contract types. The provision of English documentation more than doubles foreign company participation for low value contracts, and leads to smaller, though still substantial, increases for higher value contracts. Because foreign bidder participation in Georgia is relatively small, the resulting impact on prices is in the order of only one percent.
KW - Construction contracts
KW - Tariffs
KW - Trade liberalization
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85085321353&partnerID=8YFLogxK
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U2 - 10.1016/j.ijindorg.2020.102616
DO - 10.1016/j.ijindorg.2020.102616
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85085321353
SN - 0167-7187
VL - 73
JO - International Journal of Industrial Organization
JF - International Journal of Industrial Organization
M1 - 102616
ER -