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This paper investigates whether and how firms receiving benefits through their connections to politicians use accounting discretion to mitigate the costs associated with negative publicity. I utilize a unique setting that captures the change in political costs arising from chairmanship appointments to influential U.S. Senate committees. Firms in the home state of a promoted officeholder often receive preferential treatment, drawing public scrutiny and incentivizing them to avoid reporting extreme earnings through income smoothing to reduce adverse political attention. Employing a difference-in-differences research design, I find evidence that home-state firms smooth their earnings throughout the officeholder's tenure following a senator's promotion to chairman or ranking minority member. Cross-sectional analyses demonstrate that these effects are stronger for firms anticipating higher political costs. Overall, this paper provides evidence of the political cost hypothesis, highlighting the role of political connections in shaping firms' financial reporting strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the impact of political connections on the performance of Korean chaebol companies. We use two indicators to measure the ability and diversity of political connections and find that chaebol companies are more likely to establish political connections compared to non-chaebol firms, which gives them an advantageous position in government procurement bidding. Significantly, our findings indicate that political connections correlate positively with the monetary value of government contracts secured by chaebols, underscoring the direct economic benefits of these connections. Overall, our study sheds light on the motivation for the political networks of chaebol firms and contributes to a better understanding of the direct benefits of political connections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies how a federal procurement regulation, known as the Truth in Negotiations Act (TINA), affects the competitiveness and execution of government contracts. TINA stipulates how contracting officials (COs) can ensure reasonable prices. Following TINA, for contracts above a certain size threshold, COs can no longer rely solely on their own judgment that a price is reasonable. Instead, they must either require suppliers to provide accounting data supporting their proposed prices or expect multiple bids. Using a regression discontinuity design, I find that above‐threshold contracts experience greater competition (i.e., more bids), improved performance (i.e., less frequent renegotiations and cost overruns), and reduced use of the harder‐to‐monitor cost‐plus pricing, compared to below‐threshold contracts. These findings suggest that TINA's requirements enhance competition and oversight for above‐threshold contracts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public procurement is a process performed by the Contracting Authorities which select the Economic Operators through a public competition, to enter into public contracts for the provision of goods, services, or works, against payment from public funds. The area of public procurement is very important in the management and spending of public money because public procurement is the environment where public money is filtered to have the least possible misuse, and financial stability of state institutions so that they are more consistent in the functioning and development of professional activities. Therefore, in this context, the present paper will analyze the Albanian perspective on public procurement to comprehend its alignment with EU legislation. This paper is coherent with the integration process requirements imposed on Albania and will demonstrate the positive achievements reached and the long path ahead to become a member of the European Union family. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Service Contract Labor Standards statute (formerly and more commonly known as the Service Contract Act of 1965 or "SCA") requires federal contractors and their subcontractors to pay their non-exempt employees performing work on covered service contracts in a manner consistent with prevailing wage and fringe benefit requirements established by the United States Department of Labor. The SCA was the result of lawmakers' desire to prevent the downward pressure on employee wages inherent to the federal government's policy of awarding contracts to the lowest priced offeror. Unlike most federal contracts, grant and cooperative agreements generally function on a cost reimbursement basis. As a result, in many respects, the same kinds of economic pressures that may depress employee wages are less prevalent in the grant and cooperative agreement space. Consistent with the foregoing, historically, grant and cooperative agreements have not been viewed as being subject to the prevailing wage and fringe benefit requirements of the SCA. This paper examines the Department of Labor’s efforts to apply the SCA to cooperative agreements, resulting in litigation in the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas in the case of BCFS Health and Human Services v. United States Department of Labor, et al. This paper asserts that neither the statutory and regulatory frameworks governing grant and cooperative agreements or the SCA, nor the legislative histories associated with the same, support DOL’s expansive view of the SCA’s coverage to cooperative agreements or grants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We exploit staggered municipality-level antimafia enforcement actions in Italy over the 1995–2015 period to study how the presence of organized crime affects firms. Following enforcement actions, we find increases in competition (i) among firms and (ii) for public procurement contracts. Firms that do not exit after a weakening of organized crime shrink in size, more so when operating in the nontradable sector. Our findings are consistent with organized crime acting as a barrier to entry and affecting local economic activity. This paper was accepted by David Sraer, finance. Supplemental Material: Data and the online appendix are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2021.00859. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Outsourcing is an important strategic decision of high-tech firms. However, while the research has extensively studied the implications of outsourcing to high-tech clients, its impact on high-tech vendors remains underexplored. This study empirically estimates the impact of government outsourcing contracts on high-tech vendors. Employing the earnings-return analyses framework, we find that, for high-tech vendors engaged in government outsourcing contracts, the stock market places a higher value on each unit of unexpected earnings compared to other firms. Additionally, this impact becomes stronger for contracts with longer terms, for contracts outsourced by the U.S. government or by countries with better political and economical stability. We obtain causal evidence through difference-in-differences (DID) analyses of high-tech firms' initiations of government contracts. Mechanism analyses uncover two primary drivers behind this impact: increased persistence of future earnings and improved alignment between accrual earnings and cash flows. Overall, our research indicates that when valuing high-tech firms, the stock market incorporates information from supply-chain networks, especially that related to government customers. Our results underscore the importance of obtaining government outsourcing contracts for high-tech firms' managers. Becoming a vendor to the government helps a high-tech firm reduce the uncertainty faced by its outside investors, who in turn value the high-tech firm's earnings to a greater extent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In December 2020, seeking to start cashing in on its desired 'Brexit dividends', the UK Government published the Green Paper 'Transforming Public Procurement'. The Green Paper sets out a blueprint for the reform of UK public procurement law that aims to depart from the regulatory baseline of EU law and deliver a much-touted 'bonfire of procurement red tape'. The Green Paper seeks 'to speed up and simplify [UK] procurement processes, place value for money at their heart, and unleash opportunities for small businesses, charities and social enterprises to innovate in public service delivery'. The Green Paper aims to do so by creating 'a progressive, modern regime which can adapt to the fastmoving environment in which business operates' underpinned by 'a culture of continuous improvement to support more resilient, diverse and innovative supply chains.' I argue that the Green Paper has very limited transformative potential and that its proposals merely represent an 'EU law +' approach to the regulation of public procurement that would only result in an overcomplicated regulatory infrastructure, additional administrative burdens for both public buyers and economic operators, and tensions and contradictions in the oversight model. I conclude that a substantial rethink is needed if the Green Paper's goals are to be achieved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

the paper analyzed the challenges facing Lagos State Public Procurement Agency in the implementation of procurement law. The paper adopted both the primary and secondary sources of data; data were collected through administration of questionnaires on the identified respondents. The study population of workers in the selected ministries, agency, contractors, and civil society organization consisted of 1398. A proportionate random sampling technique was used in selecting a sample size of 210 respondents representing 15% of the study population. Secondary data were obtained from books, academic journal official documents of LSPPA, and internet. Data collected were analyzed with the use of percentage, frequency, and mean. The result of the study revealed that the challenges facing Lagos State Public Procurement Agency; namely: poor ethical standard (58.9%, x̅ =2.5), shortage of manpower (72.2%, x̅ =2.1), and delay in the adjudication of contract malpractices (65.8%, x̅=2.1) were largely insubstantial challenges facing LSPPA in the implementation of public procurement law of the state amongst the ten acknowledged challenges. On the other hand, the paper further shown the challenges that were largely substantial for the LSPPA in the implementation of public procurement law in the state; such as: interference from political office holders (67.4, x̅=2.9), poor ethical standard (63.9%, x̅=2.6), delay in the release of appropriated budget (57.4%, x̅=2.7), political will and commitment to prosecute offenders (54.5, x̅=2.7), sharp practices in the award of contract (65.8%, x̅=2.8), politicized civil society organization (78.2%, x̅ =3.0), and submission of procurement plan (60.9%, x̅=2.8) substantially hampers LSPPA in the quest to achieve efficiency, probity, openness, value for money, accountability, and fair pricing amongst others. The study therefore, concludes that the challenges facing LSPPA, Lagos State Public Procurement Agency in the implementation of public procurement law in the state is largely substantial, and decelerates the policy objective targets of procurement law of the State. It was further evident from seven claims confirmation as against three claims that negated it respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Governance is unarguably the largest human enterprise. It involves interactions with diverse stakeholders, including private contractors, for procurements and delivery of public goods and services to the population through the invitation of tenders and bids for auction. Procurement can often lead to disputes given the diverse purposes of such contracts, and the nature of the contracting entities. Disputes arise in three stages: notification, allotment and performance. Private contractors are driven by profit, while the State follows its sovereign and public law obligations. In such high-stakes engagements, effective and efficient dispute resolution is not just desirable but necessary. This paper analyses the legal regime governing public procurement contracts in India, with special emphasis on the relevant dispute resolution mechanisms available. It outlines the existing international law regime on public procurement to suggest arbitration as an effective dispute resolution mechanism. The paper analyses the WTO Model, the UNCITRAL Model Law on Public Procurement, and the EU Law, to reconcile the issues particular to the Indian context, especially those related to dispute resolution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of European Review of Contract Law is the property of De Gruyter and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

It is generally accepted that law consists of two main domains -- private and public. At the same time, there is clear scepticism about the sharp separability of these domains. The problem of distinguishing private and public law is undoubtedly also a problem of public administration and its implementation as it is possible that the public purpose will also be fulfilled by private law norms. In addition, there may be legal institutes that combine more or less the norms of public and private law, for which the designation of hybrid legal institutes seems appropriate. However, such institutes may present some difficulties associated with legal dualism. The aim of this two-part paper (within its limited scope) is to provide a basic introduction to the issue of socalled hybrid legal institutes. In the first part of the paper, besides some general background, the text presents a triad of such institutes that are applied in the context of public administration and for which some debate over their legal nature could be observed in the domestic literature. In the second part (which will be published in a future issue of the journal), the text attempts to answer the research question of how to deal with these institutes, or rather considers some basic criteria for distinguishing private and public law in the context of public administration regulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides novel evidence that corporate political influence operates through renegotiations of existing government contracts. Using detailed data on contractual terms and renegotiations around sudden deaths and resignations of local politicians, the estimates show that politically connected firms initially bid low and successfully renegotiate contract amounts, deadlines, and incentives. The effects hold across different industries and contract types, enhance firm value, and persist around the exogenous increase in contract supply due to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Overall, this paper establishes an unexplored link between political influence, ex post renegotiations, and ex ante bidding of government contracts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to present the procedure of managing public procurement contracts for sustainable agricultural products from the public entities perspective (with reference to setting criteria for selecting the suppliers, contract management, etc), but also from the perspective of the selling companies (from drafting the tender to products being delivered). The research is based on data processed by Eurostat (2012-2021), but also on information taken from the Romanian Electronic Public Procurement System (2018-2022). The analyses in the paper concern indicators such as: the procurement of agricultural products from Romania, and at European level the organic production of animal products, the number of processors of sustainable agricultural products, etc. In conclusion, since the public institutions buy large quantities of agricultural products, but the market for sustainable agricultural products is restricted, a global strategy for rethinking the public procurement in this area is clearly required. The work is relevant both for the contracting authorities with respect to the management of public procurement for agricultural products, but also for the companies with respect to the business management of public contracts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examined the strategies put in place by Lagos State Public Procurement Agency in the implementation of public procurement policy. The paper utilised primary and secondary sources of data. Primary data were collected solely through the administration of questionnaires on the respondents. The study population 1,020 comprised the staff members from ministries, and agency that monitors the implementation of procurement policy in the state, Lagos State Public Procurement Agency (LSPPA). Proportionate random sampling technique was used in selecting a sample size of 154 respondents representing 15% of the study population. Secondary data were obtained from books, academic journals, official document of LSPPA and the internet. Data collected were analysed using percentage, frequency, and (RII) Relative Importance Index. The results of the study showed that the strategies put in place by Lagos State Procurement Agency; such as establishment of a threshold (52.6%, rank 7th), constitution of contract performance audit committee (63%, rank 9.5th), supervision of the deliveries (69.5%, rank 9.5th), and creation of a procurement officer's desk (57.8%, rank 8th) were not adequately substantial strategies put in place in monitoring the implementation of public procurement policy in Lagos state. Moreover, the paper revealed strategies that were adequately substantial which were put in place by Lagos State Public Procurement Agency in the implementation of public procurement law, such as composition of technical review committee (79.9%, rank 1st), appraisal of procurement plan for procuring entities (73.3%, rank 2nd), setting of fair pricing standards and benchmarks (61%, rank 6th), strategic oversight on the contracts (65.6%, rank 5th), keeping of contractors' database for proper identification (65.6%, rank 4th), publication of details of major contracts in the State (69.5%, rank 3rd) significantly improved accountability, proficiency, efficacy among the ministries selected. The study therefore, conclude that the strategies put in place by LSPPA, Lagos State Public Procurement Agency in the implementation of public procurement law in the state is substantial, and apt which ensures that procurement law of the State is followed. It was further evident from six claims affirmation as against four claims that refuted it respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conventional studies show that political connections have significant distributional effects. Yet, the means by which political connections affect the distribution of economic resources has not been fully investigated. This paper examines the role of political connections in the allocation of government procurements in China by combining quantitative and qualitative evidence. For quantitative analysis, we focus on a specific type of political connections, namely revolving‐door recruitment. A unique dataset between 2016 and 2020 based on the contract‐level transaction records of government procurements and the resumes of listed firms' board members and executives is established. The results suggest that firms establishing political connections by recruiting former government officials acquire more government procurements in the connected jurisdictions. Complementing with qualitative analysis from two publicly reported judicial cases, we show that political connections exploiting the loopholes in procurement institutions, including manipulating procurement methods, setting up restrictive requirements, and intervening in the process of expert evaluation, drives the allocation of government procurements. The results demonstrate that political connections exploit the loopholes in the context of weak institutions to benefit companies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista Digital de Derecho Administrativo is the property of Universidad Externado de Colombia and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Revista de Administración Pública is the property of Centro de Estudios Politicos y Constitucionales and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This study explored the potential effects of international donor funding on the missions of local non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in Ghana. While local NGOs often depend on overseas donor assistance to carry out their missions, such funding modalities can bring forth uncertainties and vulnerabilities, such as funding fluctuations and inconsistencies, shifting priorities, and changing financing methods. These factors raise important questions about whether international donor funding enables local NGOs to accomplish their declared missions or if it compels them to compromise their missions for survival. The paper adopts a resource dependency perspective and draws on primary data collected from local NGO actors to provide valuable insights into how international donor financing may contribute to mission creep among local Ghanaian NGOs. By analysing this dynamic relationship, the study offers a heuristic understanding of the potential adverse effects of international donor funding on local NGO missions in Ghana. The findings shed light on the substantial influence of scarce resources and reliance of local NGOs in Ghana. The study revealed that the pressure to secure funding frequently results in NGOs re-evaluating their original objectives. This not only hampers their ability to tackle particular social problems but also endangers their viability in the long run as they become more dependent on external funding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista de Estudios de la Administración Local y Autonómica is the property of Instituto Nacional de Administracion Publica and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The public sector sales market, i.e. Business-to-Government (B2G) market is large and relevant. It is similar, yet differs in several key aspects from other markets such as retail, consumer (B2C), or Businessto-Business (B2B). B2G is huge, at 2 trillion Euro per year in Europe, but insufficiently researched and it lacks proper tools and methods. Public contracts are difficult to access and require specialized expertise and a significant initial investment. This paper explores the implementation and evaluation of an IT platform that supports and automates public sector sales, Hermix, in a large company. This study had a qualitative longitudinal approach. It consisted of 7 workshops and 2 interviews with 8 case study participants, performed over the duration of a year. It highlights the implementation steps and results. Hermix automated a set of public sector sales processes for the host company, including: tender monitoring with email notifications, opportunity qualification, and market research, i.e. the analysis of the tactical and strategic context: buyers (public authorities), budgets, competition, partnership affinities, groups of interest, trends. It uses advanced data analytics, big-data and machine learning to provide market intelligence such as governmentgraphics, firmographics, geographics and monetary segmentation. Implementing public sector sales automation tools provides direct benefits to companies, related to: cost and time efficiency, improved proposal success rates, and strategic planning optimization. Indirect benefits for companies refer to delivery quality. Data analytics tools also support overall public procurement transparency, public spending efficiency and better public governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Measures to open up public procurement opportunities for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) are often justified by a perceived need to remove 'barriers' to participation in the world of public contracting. The word 'barrier' features extensively in the literature on this topic, and in the speeches and policy papers of politicians advocating for various 'pro-SME' measures. However, the language used is often inconsistent when it comes to expressing just what 'barrier' means in this context. Any business may experience a range of advantages or disadvantages as it tries to succeed in the market, but what makes a particular factor a 'barrier' that justifies government intervention? This paper explores the language of 'barriers' in the context of public procurement in the EU single market and the UK (as a jurisdiction that was, until very recently, a full participant in that market). Some relevant cases of the Europan Court of Justice (ECJ) are considered that shed light on the court's view on the difference between an unfair obstacle that should be put right, and a natural disadvantage that does not justify intervention. Finally, in light of these observations, a working definition of an 'SME procurement barrier' is suggested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Indicators of expected quality of service in public contracts are often based on some kind of "punctuality", usually defined in terms of the percentage of trains arriving at the final destination (and/or at intermediate significant stops) within a given delay. Passengers, however, tend to use the word "punctuality" with a more general meaning, mostly as a synonym for expected delay at their own destination, and especially in case of commuters are much less tolerant of even smaller delays than train operators would normally allow. In particular, measuring the delay only at the final destination is perceived as largely inadequate, leading to underestimation of the actual percentage of late trains, and in turn undermining passengers' trust in official performance statistics. In this paper, we take the passengers' perspective, introducing a family of delay indices called D-indices aimed at capturing the overall performance of a train "as a whole", taking into account both the delays at the sampling points and the mutual location and order of such sampling points. In this paper, all indicators have the physical dimension of time in order to be easily replaceable to other delay measures. We first present typical approaches and definitions of punctuality in the literature, then introduce D-indices while exploring their features, pros and cons, and relevant properties. We validate and discuss our approach by comparing this model with existing approaches both theoretically and by comparison with selected datasets consisting of about one hundred trains transcribed over the last three years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This paper examines the role of government procurement as a social policy mechanism within a multilateral open trading system. Government regulations globally are being transformed to foster more responsible business conduct in multinational enterprises (MNEs). Yet, concern that sustainability may present a discriminatory barrier to trade has stalled the progress of sustainable public procurement (SPP) at the international level, raising questions regarding the role and scope of the World Trade Organisation's (WTO) Government Procurement Agreement (GPA) to align taxpayer-funded contracts with the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals. Design/methodology/approach: With a focus on social sustainability, this paper reviews the grey and academic literature to assess the changing landscape of public procurement policy and supply chain legislation in high-income countries. Findings: Frontrunner nations are adopting a mandatory approach to sustainable public procurement and due diligence legislation is elevating supply chain risk from reputational damage to legal liability. While technological innovation and the clean, green production of manufactured goods dominates the sustainable public procurement literature, the social aspects of sustainability poverty, inequality and human rights remain underrepresented. Research limitations/implications: The scope of this paper is limited to the examination of government procurement covered by the WTO-GPA (2012). Smaller value contracts, under the WTO-GPA thresholds and the category of defence are beyond the scope of the paper. Social implications: The paper focusses on the underserved topic of social sustainability in business-to-government (B2G) – business to government – supply chains arguing that for responsible business conduct to become a competitive advantage, it must be more meaningfully rewarded on the demand-side of all taxpayer-funded contracts in organisation for economic co-operation and development countries. The paper introduces the idea of priceless procurement as a mechanism to build system capacity in the evaluation of non-financial sustainability objectives. Originality/value: To build the capacity to stimulate competition based on social and environmental policy objectives, the paper introduces the concept of priceless procurement in B2G contracts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Poor payment practices continue to plague not only the private construction industry but also the government construction sector. According to recent studies, conditions and instructions can be encoded into smart contracts to allow automatic payments. The construction industry in the Philippines is slow to adapt to new technologies. This research proposes the adoption of smart contracts for implementing Philippine government infrastructure projects. By analyzing datasets from the Cordillera Administrative Region, this study determined the willingness of government employees and contractors to adopt smart contracts for government projects and identified factors causing doubt among contractors and government employees about its implementation. A total of 218 professionals responded to a Google Form questionnaire, and 20 participants were involved in unstructured interviews, which supported the data and results from the questionnaire. To interpret and validate the data gathered, a twotailed t-test analysis was used. The study revealed that the Philippine government construction industry, specifically in the CAR region, is not yet ready to adopt smart contracts. It was also found that smart contracts will only be effective with proper introduction through seminars and training. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study is to create a bidding strategy to determine the optimum markup value and maximum expected profit to win a project auction. From the data selection results, 24 project tenders and 12 large qualification companies participated in the tender on the LPSE page of the Ministry of PUPR, which will be used as samples in this study. The bid strategy model used to calculate the optimum markup value and maximum expected profit are with 3 (three) bid strategy models, namely the Friedman Model, Gates Model, and Ackoff & Sasieni Model, and to calculate the probability of winning using the statistical approach method of multi discrete distribution, normal multi-distribution, and single normal distribution. From the results of testing models with optimal mark-ups for the 24 project tenders used in this study, the percentage for each bidding strategy model that has the potential to win the tender sequentially is the Friedman model by 80.56%, the Gates model by 61.11% and the Ackoff &; Sasieni model by 43.06%. So, it can be concluded that the Friedman model provides a fairly high chance of winning tenders in government projects within the Ministry of PUPR. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The benefits of good procurement practices in the healthcare sector are well known. Indeed, the importance of transparent, effective and efficient procurement of medical goods and services has gained momentum even more in light of the recent Covid-19 pandemic. However, there is little evidence of how traditional factors occurring on a procedure or contract level affect the effectiveness of public purchases when they take play in different institutional environments. This paper, therefore, contributes to this evidence using a large sample of public contracts in healthcare sectors awarded in 11 Central and East European Countries. The results support the previous evidence on the important role of transparency and open competitive bidding. Procedures with a prior call for competition and allowing for an unrestricted number of competitors lead to cost-effective contracts and higher direct savings. Effective government and lessening corruption have proven to facilitate better procurement outcomes, considering the financial aspects of awarded contracts. Moreover, the results on the effects of institutions contribute to the current academic debate by providing insight into the mechanism of obtaining cost-effectiveness and showing that strong institutions can play an important role in mitigating the adverse procurement outcomes related to less transparent and competition-restricting procedures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the electric power grid experiencing a rapid shift to the smart grid paradigm over a deregulated energy market, Internet of Things (IoT)-based solutions are gaining prominence, and innovative peer-to-peer (P2P) energy trading at a micro level is being deployed. Such advancement, however, leaves traditional security models vulnerable and paves the path for blockchain, a distributed ledger technology (DLT), with its decentralized, open, and transparency characteristics as a viable alternative. However, due to deregulation in energy trading markets, most of the prototype resilience regarding cybersecurity attack, performance and scalability of transaction broadcasting, and its direct impact on overall performances and attacks are required to be supported, which becomes a performance bottleneck with existing blockchain solutions such as Hyperledger, Ethereum, and so on. In this paper, we design a novel permissioned Corda framework for P2P energy trading peers that not only mitigates a new class of cyberattacks, i.e., delay trading (or discard), but also disseminates the transactions in a optimized propagation time, resulting in a fair transaction distribution. Sharing transactions in a permissioned R3 Corda blockchain framework is handled by the Advanced Message Queuing Protocol (AMQP) and transport layer security (TLS). The unique contribution of this paper lies in the use of an optimized CPU and JVM heap memory scenario analysis with P2P metric in addition to a far more realistic multihosted testbed for the performance analysis. The average latencies measured are 22 ms and 51 ms for sending and receiving messages. We compare the throughput by varying different types of flow such as energy request, request + pay, transfer, multiple notary, sender, receiver, and single notary. In the proposed framework, request is an energy asset that is based on payment state and contract in the P2P energy trading module, so in request flow, only one node with no notary appears on the vault of the node.Energy request + pay flow interaction deals with two nodes, such as producer and consumer, to deal with request and transfer of asset ownership with the help of a notary. Request + repeated pay flow request, on node A and repeatedly transfers a fraction of energy asset state to another node, B, through a notary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Directive 2014/24/EU represents a significant step in the right direction for socially responsible public procurement (SRPP). It contains many articles referencing SRPP, of which the most important may be Article 18(2). One such article is Article 57(4)a, which contains discretionary exclusion grounds for violations of SRPP, leaving it up to Member States to decide whether they will make such grounds mandatory or leave them discretionary in national legislation. The aim of this paper is to establish how Directive 2014/24/EU's approach has affected the use of SRPP exclusion grounds in Croatia, a Member State that decided to leave all of the discretionary exclusion grounds discretionary. This research was conducted by acquiring and analysing all available contract notices from 2022 to establish the percentage, value and other factors associated with SRPP use in public procurement procedures in Croatia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Blockchain is a pioneering technology that allows the creation of innovative information exchange ecosystems thanks to unique properties, such as immutability, distribution and transparency. By combining this technology with the emergent internet of things (IoT), many innovative business models can be created. The main objective of this work is to present the design and an initial implementation of a decentralized rental system that takes advantage of smart contracts developed on a public blockchain, combined with the potential of the IoT and its intimate relationship with cyber-physical systems. The logic to be implemented in the blockchain is applied in this paper by using the Ethereum programming language, so that the developed application covers the entire car rental process offered in traditional web applications, but adding more autonomy, functionalities and ease of use for both lessees and lessors. Following Ethereum application development guidelines, all business logic is located in the smart contracts implemented in the network, where they can be used to control the car rental system. While this is a work in progress, the results obtained in the first proof of concept have been very promising. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper proposes an analysis of the success factors of SMEs in the award of contracts based on public procurement. Research results have shown that SMEs to win contracts through public tenders increases significantly if more attention is paid to tender personnel training and to the digitalisation of key tendering activities. The originality and novelty of the paper lies in the study of the two factors that influence SMEs participation in public procurement procedures. The research findings highlight the fact that the success of a business is directly proportional to the full involvement of the team in the activity, to the company's tendering activity revamping, respectively, through digitalisation. The relevance of the paper lies in the new approach to the tendering process in the public procurement process, with a focus on personnel training and activity digitalisation, in a context where SMEs conclude most public procurement contracts at European level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With an investment of over 700 million euros, the public sector is the main advertiser in the Spanish market. Altogether, the central, regional, and local governments launch more than 5000 institutional advertising and communication contracts. In Spain, these tenders are governed by Law 9/2017 on Public Sector Contracts and Law 19/2013 on Transparency, Access to Public Information and Good Governance, in compliance with which governments have developed openly accessible websites that provide practical information on the contracts for interested individuals and companies. This paper compares all regional procurement platforms through the study of a hundred institutional communication public contracts launched in 2021, assessing the usefulness of the published content, detecting good practices, and identifying gaps and areas of improvement. The results obtained support the idea that these platforms do not provide exhaustive information on public contracts, which limits their potential as tools aimed at ensuring competition and transparency in public contracts. Based on this last criterion, a ranking is created among the regions analysed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using an active collective of conservators in Melbourne, Australia, as a case study, this paper will provide practice-based insights into an alternative mode of practice for the private conservation sector. Through consideration of this collective of discrete but cross-pollinated small businesses, the implications of an adaptive, networked organisational model will be explored. Challenges faced by conservators in Australia have impacted employment in the profession, which could equally describe conditions overseas. The Collingwood Conservators' Collective model has been developed in response to these challenges, with the aim of breaking down barriers to entrepreneurship in conservation. The Collective currently comprises a mixture of early and mid-career conservators working in a shared space, undertaking a variety of private work and public contracts. The short-term benefits of the collective model include access to shared resources, interdisciplinary knowledge and communal support. In the longer term, this organisational structure has the potential to make entry into conservation practice more accessible to a broader range of professionals. The collective model offers conservators an adaptable work environment within which they can scale their participation to their capabilities, contribute to large-scale projects and foster project-centred interdisciplinary partnerships. We have found that collaborative solutions have become embedded in our practices as a result of the collective's working environment. The collective has emerged as a viable alternative model for early career conservators in addition to traditional institutional pathways, providing an adaptive platform for entrepreneurship and practice in the sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Participatory development has become, 'development orthodoxy', receiving widespread proclamations of support from foreign aid agencies. Participatory development engages international development beneficiaries in making decisions about project activity selection and design. Yet, many foreign aid donors deliver project assistance through top-down, highly controlled systems that may constrain the flexibility needed to delegate decision-making power to project beneficiaries. This paper explores whether and under which conditions these foreign aid agencies delegate decision-making power to project beneficiaries, focusing on the key mechanism for delivering foreign aid: government contracts. The analysis relies on a novel dataset of U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) projects that incorporates contract specifications for beneficiary decision-making during project implementation. Despite an expectation that delivery system constraints would prohibitively exclude contract specifications for beneficiary decision-making, donors are found to commonly use contracts to delegate decision-making power to beneficiaries, but within pre-determined parameters. The results suggest that USAID is using contract specifications to engage in bounded delegation, providing some decision-making power to beneficiaries, but using boundaries to ensure the right 'fit' with institutional goals and constraints. By focusing on contract specifications and variation within these specifications, this study identifies widespread use of a 'middle ground' in how donors motivate participatory development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Pravnik is the property of Czech Academy of Sciences, Institute of State & Law and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Purpose: This study aims to critically analyse corporate criminal liability for bribery in Kuwait, by focusing on laws and regulations as key problem-solving mechanisms. To that end, it identifies and assesses the existing anti-bribery laws in Kuwait, including a legal evaluation based on international standards. This study raises several issues concerning the lack of regulations of private bribery, facilitating payments and kickbacks in government contracts, and gifts and hospitalities in private sector, using UK Bribery Act 2010 (UK BA 2010) as a reference. This study showcases how these legal shortcomings are inconsistent with international treaties, and undermine efforts to tackle corruption. Emphasis has been put on criminalising private bribery, regulating the acceptance of hospitalities and gifts and abolishing the commission payment regime in public contracts in Kuwait. Design/methodology/approach: Adopting a doctrinal focus, this paper examines case studies on curbing corporate bribery using both primary and secondary sources. Given the increasingly transitional and organised nature of business corruption, extravagant gifts and facilitating payments in public procurements globally, a comparison is drawn with the UK BA 2010. Findings: Kuwait's legal system does not criminalise bribery in private sector. Its anti-bribery laws are not at par with international standards. Therefore, the laws on disclosing commissions in public contracts must be abolished, and facilitating payments and hospitality payments in private sector must be regulated. Originality/value: This study explores corporate criminal liability for bribery in Kuwait by investigating the weaknesses and legal shortcomings of the existing anti-bribery laws, and proposing reforms to counter these using UK BA 2010 as a guide. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The central part of the scientific article is the analysis of the problem of the admissibility of modifications of public procurement contracts and concession contracts. After the awarding of a concession or a public procurement contract, these may not be substantially changed by an agreement between the contracting authority and the successful tenderer. The research is initially focused to an analysis of the development of the legal institute in the case law of the Court of Justice and its transposition into secondary legislation of the European Union. This is followed by a comparison of the regulation in the acquis communautaire with the regulation in Slovenian positive law. The problems of the admissibility of modifications to public procurement contracts/concessions (this is the central part of the article) should be supplemented by formulating a thesis on the possible extension of comparable standards of interpretation of admissibility from the contractual (implementation) to the tendering stage of public procurement/concession. In this scientific paper, I therefore point out (which was the purpose of the scientific paper) the hypothesis that all modifications in public procurement procedures and concession award procedures must be treated equally, regardless of the stage a relationship creation or implementation process. A different position would be administrative and contrary to the necessary functional interpretation of EU law. The modification cannot becomes admissible at the time of the conclusion of the contract, while prior to that, this modification (which would already form part of the contractual relationship) is not admissible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The distinction between statistical and practical significance often arises in the analysis of large data sets, where seemingly small disparities can reach statistical significance at the 0.05 level. In 2014, the opinion in Jones v. Boston created a split in the circuits when it relied solely on statistical significance. The opinion noted that there is no generally accepted definition of practical significance and that the phrase may simply mean that the person using the term views the disparity as substantial enough that a plaintiff should be able to sue. In July 2019, the Office of Federal Compliance Programs (OFCCP) proposed updated procedures for the way it considers both practical and statistical significance when reviewing the employment practices of government contractors. 1 On 10 November 2020, the Agency issued its final rules, which downplayed the role of statistical significance. 2 The main measures of practical significance mentioned in the notices OFCCP issued in the Federal Register or its Frequently Asked Questions guide 3 as well as some other measures of practical significance that have been proposed are studied in this article. The results of the paper support the First Circuit and OFCCP in their views that there is no single measure of practical significance that can be recommended for use as the sole criterion for deciding whether the disparity has practical importance. Nevertheless, the paper includes an empirical guideline combining the odds ratio and difference between success rates to judge practical significance as well as recommendations for balancing Type I and Type II errors and their consequences in the context of the case in determining the level required for statistical significance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Government Accountability Office’s (GAO) bid protest decisions often create standards that are followed to nearly the same degree as statutes, Executive Orders (EOs), and regulations and are often given similar deference. GAO decisions, however, are much harder for contracting officers (COs) to find, read, and understand than statutes, regulations, and EOs. This confusion fundamentally undermines the intent of the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) to create a single source for all acquisition regulations that is written in simple, easy to understand language and creates an untenable situation for COs who are unaware of these additional rules. Codification of the standards created by GAO decisions would allow public participation and comment during the rule-making process and provide clearer, more consistent guidance on topics where the FAR has left room for interpretation that is currently being filled by standards created in GAO’s bid protest decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Anti-boycott laws are more popular and pervasive today than ever before. More than half of U.S. states have "anti-BDS laws" that prohibit recipients of public contracts and state investment from boycotting the State of Israel. And almost as many have proposed or passed "anti-ESG" rules that restrict boycotts of fossil fuels, firearms, and other contested industries in similar ways. These controversial rules have triggered a fierce debate--and nationwide litigation--over whether the First Amendment includes a "right to boycott." This Article is the first to take up the question from a historical standpoint. Examining the boycott's constitutional status from before the Founding to the present era, we find that state actors have consistently treated the boycott as economic conduct subject to governmental control, and not as expression presumptively immune from state interference. Before the Founding, the colonists mandated a strict boycott of Britain, which local governmental bodies enforced through trial proceedings and economic punishments. At common law, courts used the doctrine of conspiracy to enjoin "unjustified" boycotts and hold liable their perpetrators. And in the modern era, state and federal officials have consistently compelled participation in the boycotts they approved, while prohibiting participation in the ones they opposed. The Article concludes that modern anti-boycott laws not only fit within, but improve upon, this constitutional tradition. As the Supreme Court's 1982 decision in NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware illustrates, the common-law approach risks violating the First Amendment if applied to restrict not only the act of boycotting or refusing to deal, but also the expressive activities that accompany such politically motivated refusals. Modern anti-boycott laws minimize that problem by surgically targeting the act of boycotting while leaving regulated entities free to say whatever they please. Hence, from the standpoint of history, these laws reflect First Amendment progress, not decay. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This document is a letter from the editor of the Urban Affairs Review, celebrating the 60th anniversary of the journal. The letter highlights the influential article by Michael Lipsky, "Street Level Bureaucracy and the Analysis of Urban Reform," published in 1971. The article examines the concept of street-level bureaucracy, focusing on the interactions between bureaucrats and citizens in urban settings. It discusses the challenges faced by street-level bureaucrats, such as inadequate resources and contradictory job expectations, and how these challenges can lead to biased and discriminatory behaviors. The letter also mentions other articles in the journal that have expanded on Lipsky's work and applied the concept of street-level bureaucracy to different contexts. Overall, the article emphasizes the evolution and continued relevance of the concept in the study of urban politics. [Extracted from the article]

We argue that contracting with the federal government involves significant proprietary information cost due to regulations requiring contractors to provide proprietary information, which may become available to outsiders via Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. We provide evidence by showing that firms become more willing to bid for government contracts after a recent Supreme Court ruling on FOIA (Food Marketing Institute v. Argus Leader Media) that improved information protection for contractors and that this effect strengthens when the contracts entail higher proprietary information cost for contractors. Data Availability: Data are available from the public sources cited in the text. JEL Classifications: K4; M4. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Nachhaltigkeitsrecht is the property of Verlag Oesterreich GmbH and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Nachhaltigkeitsrecht is the property of Verlag Oesterreich GmbH and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of IDP: Revista de Internet, Derecho y Politica is the property of Universitat Oberta de Catalunya and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Purpose: The aim of this paper is to examine the changed nature of public accountability during a supreme emergency and explore how legal and auditing mechanisms have come to the fore, concluding that misappropriation of public monies is not an inevitable outcome. Design/methodology/approach: The paper explores an illustrative example, the UK government's procurement of personal protective equipment during the early stages of the Covid-19 pandemic. Findings: In circumstances of a supreme emergency where parliamentary scrutiny and competitive contract tendering are suspended, other forms of public accountability come to the fore, with civil society actors becoming more evident. Research limitations/implications: The paper relies on illustrative examples based on the Westminster model of government. The study advanced the notion of deferred accountability and identifies areas for further study, potentially in different jurisdictions. Social implications: The paper highlights the need for a variety of active and engaged civil society actors. Originality/value: The paper contributes an empirical case to how an account of government behaviour is established. The paper also contributes to a deeper understanding of the nature and role of legal and government audit accountability mechanisms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public corruption in the government procurement process is rampant and its cost is huge, even among developed countries. Some scholars estimate that about 20%-30% of the values of government projects are lost due to public corruption. In this paper, we examine how public corruption impacts the allocation of U.S. federal contracts. Using the U.S. Department of Justice corruption convictions data and the federal contract data from 2000 to 2018, we find that firms located in more corrupt states receive more federal contract dollars, more important contracts in terms of their contributions to firm revenues, and contracts with higher visibility among federal contractors. We construct an influence/favoritism index that takes into account defense contracts, cost- plus contracts, and multi- year contracts, and document that the index is positively related to corruption levels. These results hold after we conduct several robustness tests, including 2SLS regressions, propensity- score matching analysis, and using alternative corruption measures. Our empirical findings are consistent with the hypothesis that corruption plays an important role in how federal contracts are allocated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Vniversitas is the property of Pontificia Universidad Javeriana and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)