Make, buy or «make them buy»: Delegating procurement in local governments

This article investigates how the governance of municipal public procurement has transformed and differentiated in Italy between 2014 and 2023, focusing on the growing delegation of procurement management from municipalities to hybrid contracting authorities such as in-house companies and inter-municipal consortia. Drawing on ANAC open data largely covering the municipal procurement procedures over the decade, the analysis examines how delegation varies across procurement objects, procedural types, and transaction characteristics. The findings document a significative reconfiguration of procurement governance. While municipalities remain the predominant contracting authorities in terms of the number of procedures managed, delegated authorities concentrate a growing share of procurement value and are more frequently responsible for highly regulated and administratively demanding procedures. From a transaction cost economics (TCE) perspective, these patterns suggest that delegation is not a residual outcome, but a structured governance strategy through which municipalities manage growing transaction volumes, procedural complexity, and capacity constraints. Building on this evidence, the article advances the «make, buy, or make them buy» trilemma as an extension of the traditional «make or buy» framework. By conceptualizing delegation as a distinct organizational choice, the paper contributes to the literature on public procurement and public administration by highlighting how public authorities navigate increasing complexity through differentiated governance arrangements.