Public procurement accounts for a significant proportion of overall demand for goods and services and is increasingly seen as an attractive and feasible instrument for furthering the goals of innovation policy. However, public procurement is already expected to address a wide range of social...

This paper presents a methodology and first results of the zIndex - a public procurement benchmarking tool for contracting authorities that measures a deviation from best practice recommendations. zIndex is a composite index mapping many issues in the areas of openness, competition and...

Outsourcing public provision of services tends to lower labor intensity and increase its efficiency. Costs are usually lower, but quality problems can affect services like health care and residential youth care. Consumer choice has stimulated innovation in education, but the picture is ambiguous...