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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]

State negotiations constitute the foundation for the development of each nation, relying on the acquisition of resources and services. Public procurement not only has economic and social impacts but also demands that public officials ensure compliance with the law. However, some of these officials have violated the legal principles of public procurement, seeking to obtain benefits, goods, or personal services without legal backing. In studies conducted in Ecuador, this phenomenon has been analyzed in relation to the variability of indeter-minacies that public officials face in interpreting regulations. Therefore, this paper focuses on analyzing and defining the levels of indeterminacy present in the neutrosophic variable that influences the functioning of state negotiations. The use of neutrosophic statistics is suggested for modeling the study to detect indeterminacies of the variable in each dimension. Among the neutrosophic results, the misuse of government policies in state negotiation processes is identified as the sole criterion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Under the Public Sector Directive, public buyers are allowed to include sustainability considerations in their purchasing decisions within the limits of the principles of procurement. This framework allows criteria linked to the subject matter to be contractualised. Though different criteria are widely employed in public procurement within the umbrella of sustainable public procurement, the literature mostly focuses on stages leading to the contract award instead of considering the public contract as a document incorporating contractual obligations. On the other side, green and social commitments in (business) contracts are considerations that are not necessarily linked to the subject matter. Though their value is acknowledged, their enforcement proves to be challenging due to the restraints of contract law. By using European contract law as a reference point, this paper compares sustainability clauses in business contracts to sustainability clauses in public contracts – to determine whether the EU regime applicable to public contracts offers solutions to these hurdles. [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]

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]

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]

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]

This article presents information on Samuel Richardson, an author and his plans for contracts as a parliamentary printer. At first, it was assumed that Richardson refers only to official government contracts. The contract involved was enormous—the task included printing not only recent transcriptions but also manuscript records of sessions dating back to 1547, so that Richardson was embroiled for the rest of his life in a massive Shandean catch-up operation that was only nearing completion in 1761, the year of his death, when the proceedings to November 1757 had just appeared.

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]

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]

This paper focuses on sustainable public procurement (SPP) and its role in public procurement of the members of the Visegrad Group (Hungarian, Poland, Slovakia, Czech Republic). Sustainable public procurement is a current trend in public purchasing around the world. The European Union's sustainable development policy, which respects the objectives of the 2030 Agenda, seeks to influence the public procurement policies of the members of the European Union. Every country, including the Visegard Group countries is trying to implement sustainable development criteria in its procurement process and to change legislation. The aim of this paper is to compare the implementation of public procurement in the Czech Republic with other members of the Visegrad Group (Poland, Slovakia, Hungary) and analyse how the public procurement (tenders) respects the criteria of sustainable public procurement in the case of the selected public procurements (tenders) in rail transport. We analyse the public procurement process and investigate the possibility/appropriateness of using social responsibility criteria in the individual phases of the procurement process (award criteria). The results show that there are different methods of implementing SPP in the V4 countries. There are significant differences between the regions. Based on the results of our research and analysis of the selected tenders, we concluded that the principle of social responsibility needs to be reflected in all steps, i.e. in the formulation of the subject of the public contract, the preparation of the contractual terms and the selection of evaluation criteria in their qualitative form. [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]

This paper explores opportunities for utilising cleantech in framing research on sustainability-oriented innovations in public procurement. Research objectives include a critical examination of whether cleantech is a distinct sector through a systematic literature review and synthesis of findings with public procurement research. The final analysis involved 31 peerreviewed academic papers along with additional publications obtained with the snowball-approach. The results suggest that cleantech could be used to analyse sustainability related research in the public procurement context. Cleantech is also helpful in enhancing research on public procurement of innovations and addressing societal benefits through local development. Findings unveil new opportunities in investigating better access of smes to public contracts through intermediaries, networks, and public-private partnerships. This paper is the first academic paper to analyse academic cleantech literature and link cleantech and public procurement fields. Such an approach is helpful in framing sustainability in public procurement research and stresses new ways of involving smes in public contracts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article analyzes, based on primary and secondary sources, the application of the doctrine of unconscionability in state contracts. For this purpose, the paper is divided into two parts. In the first part, some general considerations on unfair terms are presented. In the second part, it is exposed the scope of these clauses in the field of government contracting in Colombia, in particular, their purpose, characteristics and the legal sanction to which they are subject. [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]

This paper analyzes a topical issue, namely the lease and concession of agricultural land belonging to the public and private domain of the state, with the pointing of the particularities of land allocation in the case study, conducted in Sibiu County. It is an extensive study based on important opinions expressed by the literature and statistical data provided by the National Institute of Statistics in Romania. Specifically, the scientific research undertaken aimed at studying historically and comparatively the evolution of leasing and concession contracts in our country. It highlights the steps to be followed to become a contractual partner of the two types of contracts, the procedure for carrying out and pursuing these contracts by the State Domains Agency both at national and local level. The methodology used is the case study and is based on the secondary analysis of statistical data and relevant literature. In essence, the study highlights a set of elements with a role in highlighting the most common categories of rented and leased use, efficient management of state-owned agricultural land, improving soil quality, increasing revenues to the state budget. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper empirically examines the demand and supply sides of bribery using World Bank Enterprise Survey data on 18,005 firms in more than 75 developing countries. It assesses the determinants of firms' bribe paying behavior and examine how bribe behavior affects two main sectors where corruption is rampant: taxation and government contracts. The paper shows that corruption in tax administration tends to be mainly a demand-side phenomenon. Paying a bribe requested by a public official is associated with a 16 percent increase in the share of sales not reported for tax purposes. In public procurement, the results suggest on the contrary that corruption is a supply-side phenomenon, with bribe transactions generally initiated by firms to secure public contracts. Firms supplying a bribe without a previous request by officials is associated with a 17 percent increase in the bribe paid to secure a government contract, more than three times the effect observed on the demand side of bribery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Starting from 1 February 2021 Serbia is under an obligation to apply the 2007 Hague Convention on the International Recovery of Child Support and Other Forms of Family Maintenance. This is a new source introducing significant changes in Serbian private international law. Apart from provisions on administrative cooperation between contracting states’ central authorities with an aim to simply and accelerate recovery of maintenance in international context, the Convention contains detailed provisions on recognition and enforcement of maintenance decisions, reasons for its refusal and, which is a particular novelty in comparison to previous international convention, procedural rules that a court of another competent body of the requested state should apply while deciding on the issue. The paper discusses the main features of the recognition and enforcement mechanism established by the Convention and, in particular, certain issues that Serbian courts might face as a result of the interaction between provisions of the Convention and Serbian law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents blockchain as an integrated tool that can be used in records management to eliminate public corruption. The paper defines blockchain technology as electronic records management in a networked environment to manage public contract transactions. During the Covid-19 pandemic, many "covidpreneurship" companies were awarded contracts at figures inflated by 200%. In response, the state president instituted a joint committee to investigate the problem and requested investigative authorities to make recommendations to prosecute offenders. This paper argues that the government can stop public funds-related corruption by using an integrated records management system built on blockchain infrastructure. The disruptive technology could be a catalyst to stop Covid-19 personal protective equipment (PPE) suppliers from raising prices 100 times above market value, which has led to criminal investigations. A living-lab methodology was adopted, which allows innovative technology to be experimented with in a social research design. Hence, a software algorithm was applied to mine qualitative data from news feeds and their contents, presented as qualitative text transcripts. The paper contends that the blockchain is vital in protecting the integrity of public contracts and their records management and to ensure that no one can alter the contract or inflate prices. The paper recommends that records officers/managers authenticate and conduct transactional records audits. The contract process should be automated using blockchain. It will eliminate favouritism and nepotism in the award of public tender contracts. The technology can also be used to automatically filter out exorbitant quotations above the market values of items. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues for a new social contract in the United States which will establish the mutual expectations and obligations that workers, employers and their communities have regarding work and employment relationships. It reports suggestions by participants in a recent online MITx course on 'Shaping the Future of Work'. The participants in the course assigned high priority to business leaders working collaboratively with employees to improve organizational performance and provide workers with a significant voice in corporate governance. They urged unions to be effective in representing workers' interests, not in an adversarial but in a partnership manner. They advocated that government should balance power in society and reform labor laws to provide workers with a wider range of voice and representation. The paper suggests steps which the new Administration should take to achieve these goals, in order to establish a new social contract and heal deep divisions in American society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores opportunities for utilising cleantech in framing research on sustainability-oriented innovations in public procurement. Research objectives include a critical examination of whether cleantech is a distinct sector through a systematic literature review and synthesis of findings with public procurement research. The final analysis involved 31 peerreviewed academic papers along with additional publications obtained with the snowball-approach. The results suggest that cleantech could be used to analyse sustainability related research in the public procurement context. Cleantech is also helpful in enhancing research on public procurement of innovations and addressing societal benefits through local development. Findings unveil new opportunities in investigating better access of smes to public contracts through intermediaries, networks, and public-private partnerships. This paper is the first academic paper to analyse academic cleantech literature and link cleantech and public procurement fields. Such an approach is helpful in framing sustainability in public procurement research and stresses new ways of involving smes in public contracts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Corruption and inefficiency of public funds pose a risk in public administrations. This paper analyses the corruption risk at the local level by analysing indicators of public procurement contracts in four deputations of Galicia (Spain). In addition, the pandemic has created opportunities to increase this risk and the misuse of public funds given the need to act quickly. Therefore, the study analyses whether the Covid crisis led to significant changes in expenditure in the four deputations and whether it involves a higher use of minor contracts, an award procedure without publicity or bidding, which has been found as increasing corruption risk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Housing First is a popular model of homeless services that has transformed urban governance across the globe. Scholars have praised Housing First as voluntary care or criticized it as a disciplinary intervention. Both perspectives offer a partial account of Housing First case management. I extend those studies with interview-based research that conceptualizes U.S. Housing First as a hybrid form of homeless governance that exercises control through discipline and inclusive repression. Government authorities contract Housing First providers to reduce public expenditures by rehousing chronically homeless people. Case managers make disciplinary interventions until tenants are confronted with an eviction. At that point, service providers use inclusionary repression to sustain market exchanges by selectively disenfranchising tenants and rendering them pliable to disciplinary interventions in the future. This paper advances homeless scholarship by showing how, as a publicly subsidized property management service, U.S. Housing First buttresses urban housing markets through hybrid governance. [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]

State negotiations constitute for each nation the support for the development of society from the acquisition of resources and services. Public contracting has an economic and social impact, where public officials must ensure that they are complied with according to the law. However, public officials have violated the legal principles of public procurement to acquire benefits or personal services without legal support. In studies carried out in Ecuador, this phenomenon has been analyzed in relation to the variability of uncertainties in which public officials understand the regulations. That is why this paper focuses on analyzing and defining the levels of indeterminacy present in the neutrosophic variable that affects the functioning of state negotiation. For the modeling of the study, the use of neutrosophic statistics is suggested to detect the uncertainties of the variable in each dimension. Among the neutrosophic results, the undue use of government policies in state negotiation processes is obtained as the only criterion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the introduction of new European Union legislation seeking to establish a single European railway area and increase the railway sector's competitiveness, competition has also become a reality in this, until then, monopoly market. In addition to allowing open access to the railway market with freight and passenger services, competition in the regulated part of the market has been increasing, specifically in the segment of public passenger transport services. Public tendering for providing public services has increased the quality of services for passengers and contracting authorities; however, the question remains whether this model of awarding these services is also effective from a socioeconomic viewpoint. This study focused on evaluating contracting authorities of public services in the Visegrád-4 countries regarding public spending effectiveness. Based on the chosen model inputs and outputs related to performance and value indicators of public service contracts, we calculate individual contracting authorities' relative effectiveness using nonparametric data envelopment analysis (DEA) models. We subsequently tested assumptions of the difference in effectiveness according to awarding services, individual countries or ownership of railway undertakings. We came to the conclusion that it is not possible to confirm that public tenders in V4 countries significantly increased the effectiveness of public spending in comparison with direct awards or other ways of awarding PSO. Discussions on the main results and research limitations are also part of this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a reflection of changing geographies of US migration control, when Essex County, New Jersey's local government adopted a new immigration detention contract with the federal government, an elected official noted: 'This is a very unpleasant way of getting revenue. But it's going to be helpful.' Despite politically liberal leanings as well as active and expanding resistance to a pec sistently conservative immigration enforcement agenda from the national level, New Jersey has been a leading provider of detention in the United States, with numerous counties benefiting significantly from immigration crackdowns. This article examines local debates in three New Jersey municipalities alongside public records data that detail financial relationships central to immigration detention operations, to argue that the ensuing relationships intersect and intertwine in ways that make detention economies a critical facet of municipal development. Further, following a 2021 paper by Lauren Martin, we argue that attention to the array of entities that are linked through detention economies demonstrates the usefulness of understanding the migration 'industry' as an assemblage. Using a site-specific investigative focus we trace myriad entities' involvement in immigration detention and reliance on income from Immigration and Customs Enforcement. We detail how these multifarious actors, sometimes with opposing views on detention and distinct rationalities, converge in ways that contribute to the further entrenchment of detention in municipal areas. Through this focused case study, our analysis advances a critical migration industries approach and details how detention economies are 'assembled' and entangled with urban areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (Centre or ICSID) was established for resolving disputes between foreign investors and host States. This is why jurisdiction ratione personae of the Centre depends crucially on who can be considered as a foreign investor, i.e. which persons have right of standing to initiate arbitration based on the Washington Convention on the Settlement of Investment Disputes between States and Nationals of other States (the Convention). When a claimant is a juridical person, one of the issues causing a debate in arbitral practice concerns the significance of control over that entity- to what extant is jurisdiction of an ICSID tribunal affected by the fact that the entity is under direct or indirect control of the host State's nationals. The paper examines the problem with regards two groups of cases that the Convention regulates separately. The first group concerns cases in which the role of a claimant belongs to juridical persons nominally holding the nationality of other Contracting States of the Convention. The other category relates to the cases of claims submitted by local entities controlled by foreign investors against their own State. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Washington Archaeological Research Center (WARC) was established in 1972 at Washington State University (WSU) to serve the six four-year universities and colleges, the state, and thus the public. WARC served as a clearinghouse for government contracts. Project assignments were made through a Scientific Committee of archaeology faculty. Dr. Richard D. Daugherty directed WARC until 1980, when the Administrative Board, and the Scientific Committee, redirected WARC away from contract coordination. Dr. Dale R. Croes was appointed Director, and WARC was tasked with maintaining the state's site records and contract/research reports library. WARC was also directed to create the first computer database for survey projects and site records. WARC goals grew to include: facilitating research, training students, and conducting public outreach. WARC soon created an Advisory Council representing a broad collation of private contract archaeologists; professional archaeologists from Oregon, Idaho, and British Columbia, Canada; Native American Representatives; Federal/state agencies; and Archaeological/Historical Societies. In many ways it was an effort to work together, using our limited resources, to promote archaeological interests (especially beginning to digitize, standardize, and update our paper-based archaeological site forms)--a coordinating of our discipline, in a form of communitarianism, based on the idea that those involved in archaeology were essentially cooperative ("good") people who wanted to work together for our common goals. The WARC newsletter, The Thunderbird with the distribution of 68 issues, serves as the basis for outlining a chronology of our history between 1980 and 1988. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the Second World War, journal editors working under the American Advisory Committee on Scientific Publications (ACSP) struggled to reconcile new demands of secrecy with their commitment to open exchange of knowledge. ACSP referees' dilemmas were most acute where the consequences of disclosure were least obvious. Their greatest disagreements emerged not out of nuclear weapons research, but rather from problems of lesser perceived military significance, which were nevertheless the subject of contracted work with the Office of Scientific Research and Development. Although civilian scientists could publish on these topics without consequences to national security, the ACSP frequently restricted civilian publications for the simple reason that military-contracted scientists were performing similar research. This paper examines three cases in which the priority claims of federally contracted researchers influenced decisions on censorship. In these cases, referees imposed censorship to ensure equal access to publication channels, when federal contracts had divided the American scientific community into civilian and military-adjacent subgroups. Uniform censorship preserved the image of a uniform scientific community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The road maintenance workload for transportation agencies increases every year. To maintain roads effectively, one contracting method state Departments of Transportation (DOTs) use to outsource is performance-based contracting (PBC). However, state DOTs are having problems identifying the execution issues with PBCs. This study prepares a framework for execution of the PBC method for chip seals (one of the highest expenditure activities for most states), to help guide state engineers to effectively execute the contracts. This framework was developed by conducting a Delphi study with state engineers. The study found five reasons for selecting PBC chip seal; five performance measures; a range of incentives/disincentives to be provided; and the method of PBC team training. For the procurement phase, this study identified the five personnel to be included in the procurement team, as well as the contract duration and best contractor selection method. Similarly, for the contract implementation phase, the five key personnel to be included in the project implementation team, the best way to manage traffic, the timeliness to fix defects, responsibility, the frequency to complete quality assurance work, and the mobilization payment method were identified. As the primary contribution, this paper identified the critical factors of PBC contract life-cycle phases and developed a framework that will provide an easy-to-follow guide to execute PBC contracts to state DOTs. This study has a limitation with its sample size in the Delphi study due to a lack of experience of state DOTs in using the PBC method. The authors recommend conducting similar studies for other activities (cleaning, culvert cleaning, etc.) with larger sample sizes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the selection of the best tender in a public procurement process. This process involves different steps: the design of the tender process, the choice of tender selection methods, and scoring rules for evaluating tenders—the ex post control. Due to the interconnections between the rules on public contracts and those aimed to tackle corruption, the choice of tender selection methods and scoring rules for evaluating tenders assumes a crucial importance. The criterion usually used to select the best tender is the most economic advantageous tender (MEAT) based on the evaluation of technical requirements, on the one hand, and economic offer, on the other hand. First, this paper highlights some critical issues on the weighted sum method and some analytical formulas, commonly used to calculate the MEAT. Then, in order to apply a unique procedure and limit some risks of corruption and collusive agreements, it proposes to implement a unified group-AHP approach: In particular, a group-AHP model is applied for analyzing the qualitative component and another AHP model is used for the quantitative component. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the use of the nonprofit organizational form to mitigate the impact of incomplete contracts in the public sector Transaction costs economics (TCE) predicts that the expense of incomplete contracts will rise with contract complexity and asset specificity. Previous research shows that government agencies increase their use cost-plus style contracts to economize on these costs. However, cost-plus style contracts may also increase the propensity to inflate procurement costs, also known as gold-plating, when relationally specific investments are required. Consistent with this expectation, we find that federal agencies reduce their use of cost-plus style contracts as asset specificity rises. The paper then explores the use of nonprofit organizations as an alternative tool to reduce contracting costs. Using data from the Federal Procurement Data System, we examine the choice of organizational form by federal agencies, as contracts become more or less incomplete. Consistent with our hypotheses, we find that the use of nonprofit organizations increases with contract complexity. In contrast to cost-plus style contracts, we find that the use of nonprofits also increases with asset specificity. We apply this finding to support the conjecture that the nonprofit organization form is used by government agencies to mitigate contract incompleteness without the associated risk of cost inflation. We conclude by offering suggestions for why nonprofit contracts appear relatively infrequently in federal procurement data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a well-documented tension in many nonprofits - particularly those seeking government contracts or working in areas that compete with the private sector - between the institutional logics of business-market and nonprofit-mission. This paper presents a case study of a century old Swedish nonprofit. It suggests that in the presence of competing hybrid logics, organizational actors respond according to the logic to which they are drawn ideologically. Logic salience as a concept is proposed and its three categories are identified to delineate which type and degree of salience individuals hold towards market logic, mission logic, or towards both. The findings indicate that logic salience can enable or constrain any of the hybrid goals and can provide some explanation as to how or why certain organizational responses that do not represent the collective come about as organizations are wedged between competing logics. Considering the increasing role of nonprofits in the delivery of public services, relevance to research and policy is also highlighted.

This paper studies the experience of Europe's three most liberalised railways - Sweden, Germany and Britain - in opening-up rail passenger services to competition by means of competitive tendering, and seeks to draw lessons for countries that are just starting the process, such as France. It also comments on experience of competition in the market in these and other countries (this form of competition has been taken furthest in other countries - notably Italy and the Czech Republic, as well as on a single route in Austria). The paper fills an important gap in the literature - that has so far focused on econometric modelling of the impact of rail reforms - by considering how competition can best be introduced in practice. This investigation is important and timely given the requirements of EU legislation (4th Railway Package) which will require competition to be introduced into passenger rail services (by 2020 for commercial services, and 2023 for public transport contracts) across the whole of the EU. It finds evidence that competitive tendering has helped increase demand for and reduce subsidies to the rail passenger sector, but that there are many decisions that have to be taken as to how it is to be implemented. Short gross cost contracts may work well for regional services where the tendering authority takes the lead in planning and marketing such services. If services where ticket revenue recovers a larger share of costs – "more commercial services" – are to be tendered, long net cost contracts may make more sense. An alternative is to leave them operated by the incumbent but with open access for competitors to enter the market. Two particular issues face countries starting on the liberalisation process. Firstly, if existing rolling stock is owned by the incumbent rather than the franchising authority or an independent company; that remains a major barrier to entry. The second is the position of existing staff. If new operators are required to take them on at existing wages and conditions; that is a barrier to improved efficiency, but for new operators to recruit their own staff may also be problematic, particularly where the pace of change is fast. • In all three liberalised countries (GB, Sweden and Germany) there has been rapid growth in demand for regional services. • Subsidies per train-km and passenger-km have also fallen in all three countries, though in GB unit costs rose post-reforms. • Gross-cost contracts useful where regional body controls marketing/services; otherwise net-cost contracts may be preferred. • Where large-scale competition introduced for first time, treatment of rolling stock and existing staff biggest issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On the other hand, there is an imperative to subject these contracts to some form of competition and has supplemented the public procurement Directives with EU law principles which ensure a parallel process of procurement with dimensional public contracts. The Single Market Act relies on a simplified public procurement regime in the European Union, which will result from procedural efficiencies and from streamlining the application of the substantive rules. 11 European Commission, I White Paper for the Completion of the Internal Market i , COM (85) 310 fin, 1985; also Green Paper on Public Procurement in the European Union: I Exploring the way forward i , European Commission 1996; also European Commission, Communication on Public Procurement in the European Union, COM (98) 143. [Extracted from the article]

The following paper aims to analyze the legal framework of public procurement for professional services. Through legal research methods, the paper proposes a systematic analysis of the legal framework recurring to normative, jurisprudence, and doctrinal sources. It will be held that the legal definition of those contracts made in article 32.3 of Law 80/1993 is too broad and vague. It has generated many doubts about the scope of this particular kind of contract and the public procurement process applicable to them. Therefore, this article studied the legal framework of the different types of public professional services contracts: professional services on strict sense, support management and artistic works that can only be entrusted with certain people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The proliferation of 'behind-the-border' issues has become a major challenge for the global trading system. Why are some trade-related issues integrated in the strongly judicialized WTO with its dispute settlement system, while others are governed in isolation from the trade regime? Contributing to the literature on WTO issue boundaries, the paper highlights the role of uncertainty and demand for transgovernmental regulatory cooperation as drivers of regime outcomes. I argue that high technical and political uncertainty delays GATT/WTO integration of trade-related issues in favour of a soft-law trade pathway. A further-reaching separation from the trade regime occurs when uncertainty remains high and national regulatory authorities exhibit a demand for trade-separate cooperation with foreign counterparts. Case studies on government procurement and competition policy substantiate the argument. Government procurement has been integrated into the GATT/WTO trade regime under a market access agenda pursued by EU and US trade actors, but only after uncertainty had been reduced in technical soft-law trade talks at the OECD. Conversely, in competition policy – despite repeated efforts at GATT/WTO integration – cooperation has thrived in less judicialized transgovernmental networks such as the International Competition Network, driven by competition agencies eager to solve regulatory cooperation problems independently from the trade regime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By relying on WVS data and using multilevel mixed modeling, the paper tests the hypothesis that access to larger flows of information about government fiscal accounts and financial transactions increases citizens' willingness to pay taxes. By supporting such an hypothesis, our analysis suggests that in the presence of more information, the implicit contract between the government and taxpayers displays less stringent incentives and participation constraints and causes part of the contract, namely tax morale, to be enhanced. This finding supports the implementation of fiscal transparency policies, whose possible design is discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Supreme Court judgment no. 1692/2020 of 10 December 2020 has set a precedent on the limits to substantial modifications of port concessions. This paper takes a first glance at this figure's regulation taking into consideration the Supreme Court's conclusions and principles. This precedent confirms the singularity of the concession modification regulation established in the Spanish ports law, as it is not governed by the same rules and principles as public contracting regulations. In fact, the purpose of a concession can be modified if, following the modification, it is still "recognisable" as compared to the originally awarded concession. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Hiring public officials increases firms' ability to win government contracts in Japan. • Increases in government contracts seem to be driven by quid-pro-quo. • Results suggest organizational involvement in quid-pro-quo. This paper studies how hiring public officials affects firms' ability to win government contracts in Japan. We link personnel transitions of public officials to contractors and government contracts awarded to those contractors over time. Using within-firm variation, we find evidence consistent with exchange of post-public employment for increases in government contract awards. Our results suggest that quid-pro-quo arrangements are not made as simple bilateral agreements between an individual public official and a firm, but rather made with substantial organizational involvement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pragmaticism states that general rules of action, or habits, are generalizing tendencies that lead us to action in conceivable situations describable in general terms. As a method of 'putting questions to our minds,' it assigns meanings to signs in terms of conceivable practical consequences for rational conduct. Questions are experiments on various ways of finding solutions in thoughts. This paper proposes pragmaticism as a logical method to study consciousness. In particular, perceptions of relations of differences create a "temporal contract" between states of minds that give rise to experiences. Peirce's "dyadic consciousness" is this drafting of a contract between states of mind, anticipating and occasionally furthering beyond the key notions of 4E cognitive science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Originally introduced by the Court of Justice of the European Union, the presence of 'certain cross-border interest' is used to justify the application of EU principles to public procurement contracts that fall out the scope of EU law. Nonetheless, crossborder interest needs to be proven based on the criteria settled by the CJEU. This article presents, firstly, a definition of cross-border interest and its relevance; secondly, the latest trends on digital public procurement and e-administration. Finally, the paper will discuss whether, based on the criteria of the CJEU, the expansion of digitalisation will render the presence of cross-border interest automatic, thus increasing transparency and consequently changing forever how we apply EU law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent publications have shown the role that options play in addressing the uncertainty, risk, and fairness in public--private partnership (PPP or P3) agreements in toll road projects. Typically, the literature uses financial market options techniques and applies these by analogy. Each option is presented and analyzed in standalone papers. In contrast, this paper presents an original single unifying approach for analyzing all PPP toll road options, an approach based on discounted probabilistic cash flows. The approach is a straightforward extension of conventional engineering viability analysis of projects, and does not rely on the financial market options literature. It offers a ready way to evaluate multiple options, requires minimal financial and mathematical knowledge, and hence can be readily implemented by practitioners. The paper also serves as a state-of-the-art literature summary as related to options in PPP toll road projects. The paper will be of interest to anyone involved in PPP toll road projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author discusses public procurement contracts, the procedure for their conclusion and compares them with administrative contracts, their existence and their legal nature both in the legal system of Bosnia and Herzegovina and in other legal systems. It is emphasized that the public procurement contract as an administrative contract must as such be regulated and legalized in order to function and be legitimate. Emphasis is placed on the legal nature of these agreements and on the similarities and differences that exist between this institute and other similar and close institutes. The study of public procurement contracts and administrative contracts necessarily imposes the need to study some other administrative-legal institutes, which are also very briefly given in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]