During the past decade in the United States, many public owners have implemented contractor prequalification criteria to increase the probability of building projects being completed on time, within budget and according to specifications. However, restricting the number of bidders runs the risk of reducing competitive pressures and increasing the accepted bid price. In an analysis of 927 building projects in Utah, this research finds that owners can partially offset the effect of a reduced number of bidders by timing their projects to seasonal or cyclical periods of construction slowdown or by bundling their projects together into a single, larger project.
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