Ray T wrote that:
> The HEFC decided that because the CLRC tender was lower than than of
> Newcastle that ' the management of the University of Newcastle ... did not
> want to have the contract as much as CCLRC did'.
>
> Why did CLRC want this contract - given its mission statement of promoting
> science and technology? Is it that CLRC is treated more generously by
> public funding than the University of Newcastle and were overstaffed?
>
As Ray implies, HEFC's "reasoning" here is truly bizarre: even
neo-classical economists would think this peculiar (they would argue that a
constrained optimiser ought to choose the provider offering the lowest
expected cost).
(Even if one thought the intensity of desire was a criterion for its
award, what valid reasoning makes the price offered a good measure of this?)
I can't think of any school of economics that would argue that the
intensity of desire of the would-be provider was a rational criterion -- not
least because it is easy to imagine all sorts of unattractive reasons which
might underlie high intensity of desire for the contract: for example, a
business in financial difficulties might offer attractive terms in a
desperate attempt to keep its cash flow up and postpone bankruptcy, in which
event any customers lured in would find themselves in difficulties.
Presumably this isn't the case with the CLRC, but one can easily
think of other potential motivations for its alleged keen-ness -- e.g.
previous over-investment in IT capacity -- which there would be no good
reason for HEFC to validate.
Julian
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