This report on the Public Procurement Service of Korea examines the effectiveness of its system, identifying good practices that can inspire reform efforts in other countries.

- Foreword and Acknowledgements - Abbreviations and acronyms - Executive summary - Central purchasing in Korea: The Public Procurement Service - Driving efficiency through e-procurement: KONEPS - Supporting competition and savings through framework agreements: Multiple Award Schedule contracts - Social integration: PPS implementation of secondary policy objectives - MAS contracted goods and services

In 1997 the Korean government began reforming its notoriously complicated, nontransparent, corrupt public procurement system, introducing e-procurement to exploit the country's well-developed information and communications infrastructure. Through extensive business process reengineering and information strategy planning, the Public Procurement Service-the agency formerly responsible for buying government goods and services-has been transformed into a one-stop information center. E-procurement has generated numerous benefits, including: Enhanced transparency and public trust-by reducing contacts between officials and suppliers and by sharing information between government agencies and the public. Increased managerial efficiency-by achieving economies of scale in procurement, with an estimated $2.5 billion a year in savings from the $26 million investment. This note analyzes how Korea achieved these outcomes, the lessons of its experience, and the challenges that remain for its e-procurement system.

This paper empirically studies the effect of public procurement on small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the Republic of Korea using firm-level data. Public procurement, the purchase of goods and services from private firms by the public sector, is regarded as an important policy measure for providing support to firms, particularly SMEs. This study uses establishment-level panel data of the mining and manufacturing sectors from the Korean National Bureau of Statistics (Statistics Korea) and procurement history from the Korean Public Procurement Service to empirically estimate the effects of public procurement on firms' productivity (total factor productivity) and survivability. Using a propensity score matching estimation method, we find that participating firms showed higher productivity than non-participating ones in the control group only for the year of participation, that is, 2009. After two years, in 2011, they exhibited significantly lower productivity. In contrast, establishments that participated in public procurement for SMEs in 2009 were more likely to survive than those that did not do so in 2011. These results can be interpreted as the negative consequences of government intervention. The market's efficiency enhancement is hindered if underserving companies survive owing to government intervention but fail to improve efficiency.

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