The Impact of Market Structure on the Procurement Process: the Case of the Oil Market in the Volga Federal Region

The topic of research on the public procurement process is relevant for researchers, as well as for practitioners and representatives of regulatory bodies. The public procurement system serves as a link between customers and suppliers, and also contributes to the creation of competitive conditions, both in the private market and in the public one. Using the public procurement system, organized in the form of auctions, reduces the final price of contracts. In this paper, using the fuel market of the Volga Federal District as an example, we studied the impact of the market structure (market concentration) on the final prices of contracts. Based on the data on procurements for 2014 - 2018, the average market prices of gasoline and the concentration of gas stations in the regions, models for testing hypotheses were built. As a result, it was shown that in procurements in which more than one supplier participated, the final price of the contract was on average lower than in cases where the auction participant (supplier) was only one. In addition, it was noted that a large concentration in the market, i.e. more firms in the regional market, leading to lower prices for all types of fuel.