Efficient procurement in the territories: A big challenge for the Colombian public procurement market in a highly regulated environment

Abstract

The public procurement market is consolidated as the new paradigm to understand transactions between public authorities and the private sector to meet their needs. This makes the economic perspective of this discipline revolve around providing measures that seek the efficiency of the market. This text argues that such efficiency is achieved when the precise roles of the regulatory agent and the purchasing agent whose objectives are different but their harmonious collaboration is what generates the environment of commercial normality are identified and assigned; this position is explained through an analysis of the Colombian case with the risks to efficiency represented by a regulation directed exclusively from the central sector and an institutional measure is proposed to mitigate them. © 2024 Editora Fórum Ltda.