This Article is based on the 2021 Shidler Lecture, which was delivered at the University of Washington School of Law on November 4, 2021. Through enormous public support and private initiative, biopharmaceutical firms have developed safe and effective COVID-19 vaccines in record time. These...

The rapid spread of COVID-19, firstly in Italy, exerted an impossible pressure on the EU and its Member States. Criticism of the speed of EU’s response to the pandemic, especially with regard to Italy, and signs of a lack of coordination accentuated by an initial “selfish” stance by some...

In recent years, the call for transparency in pharmaceutical pricing has gained momentum among policymakers and stakeholders. Following a resolution of the 72nd World Health Assembly and the establishment of the Oslo Medicines Initiative, there has been a concerted push for greater transparency...

This paper analyzes a prominent dimension of the initial policy response to the COVID-19 pandemic observed in many countries: the imposition of export restrictions and actions to facilitate imports. Using weekly data on the use of trade policy instruments during the first seven months of the...

This paper proposes a structural econometric approach to estimating the basic reproduction number (R0) of Covid-19. This approach identifies R0 in a panel regression model by filtering out the effects of mitigating factors on disease diffusion and is easy to implement. We apply the method to...

This paper, presented at the West Government Contracts Year in Review Conference (covering 2010), discusses developing issues in international public procurement. Among other things, the paper suggests that, in 2010, the international procurement market continued to mature, as cross-border...

The WTO Agreement on Government Procurement (GPA) is a plurilateral Agreement, meaning that it comprises only a subset of the full Membership of the WTO. Currently, a number of WTO Members that are not Parties to the Agreement either are actively seeking accession to it, have commitments to...

The high value of privatizations, licenses and equipment supply contracts in telecommunications have created opportunities for individuals to solicit and companies to pay bribes. Despite obvious risks in advocating such policies, especially in developing countries with weak or absent...

These two papers, presented at the West Government Contracts Year in Review Conference (covering 2008), discuss developing issues in international public procurement. Among other things, the Anderson paper addresses the role of the World Trade Organization in public procurement; other...

Traditionally, procurement reform and anti-corruption initiatives have followed separate tracks, although they share a common purpose: a sound government, supported by a robust and politically legitimate procurement system. Now two initiatives at the United Nations may integrate those disparate...