In many OECD countries, a primary longer term issue is how to provide universal service in the new competitive environment where voice is ubiquitous and cheap, voice revenues low and where voice has become just one of many applications provided on networks.

The launch of the euro reinforces the foundations for unprecedented economic integration encompassing 11 countries, 16 per cent of world GDP and 290 million people. For the first time, the OECD has studied the euro-area as a fully-fledged economic entity and has analysed the intensive...

Central and eastern European countries have been and still are adapting their legal framework to the requirements of a Western market economy and the body of EU legislation, the acquis communautaire. As the harmonisation of the national legal framework to EU standards is one of the yardsticks...

How do Member States regulate their national public procurement systems below the EU thresholds and in areas not regulated in detail by the EU Directives? This paper provides the reader with an overview of different national policies, rules and procedures and presents common features and...

The aim of this paper is to explore the most problematic aspects of information access legal regimes and to provide some guidelines to policy makers, including legislators, governments and public administrators. The analysis is based on the comparison of Freedom of Information Acts (FOIAs) and...

This paper provides an assessment of the impact of a package of structural reforms in the European Union and the United States on long-run trade and output gains accruing to OECD countries. The package includes reforms that reduce competition-restraining regulations, cut tariff barriers and ease...

While defining appropriate roles for political advisers is a highly relevant topic in most democracies and especially in EU NMS, as well as candidate and CARDS countries today, surprisingly little comparative information exists. To fill this gap, in Autumn 2005, the Sigma Programme launched a...

This study provides a comparative analysis of existing centralised purchasing institutions in selected EU Member States in terms of organisation, coverage, objectives and rationale, financing models, types of framework agreements and call-off systems, as well as the information technology used,...

This chart compares the EC Procurement Directives and the UNCITRAL Model Law on Procurement of Goods, Construction and Services. Most central and eastern European countries used the Model Law as the basis of their public procurement laws in the early 1990s. Now that many countries of the region...