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Do Responsible Contractor Policies Increase Construction Bid Costs?
Author(s) -
Jeffrey Waddoups C.,
May David C.
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
industrial relations: a journal of economy and society
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.61
H-Index - 57
eISSN - 1468-232X
pISSN - 0019-8676
DOI - 10.1111/irel.12056
Subject(s) - business , actuarial science , public economics , economics
Beginning in 2000, some school districts in Ohio required contractors to incorporate health insurance coverage, among other items, into their bids. Such responsible contractor policies ( RCP s) are controversial because they may raise costs. This study sheds empirical light on the controversy. We estimate construction bid costs using data on elementary school projects bid in Ohio from 1997 to 2008, some of which were covered by an RCP and others of which were not. The results indicate that once we account for variation in geographic location of schools, RCP s exert no statistically discernible impact on construction bid costs.