This paper/chapter, presented at the Thomson Reuters Government Contracts Year in Review Conference (covering 2018), attempts to identify the key evolving trends and issues in U.S. federal procurement for 2018 and beyond. Consistent with prior practice, this chapter offers extensive coverage of...

Major government or public procurements directly and indirectly impact a country's economy, infrastructure, industry base and even security. Foreign competition has the potential of reducing governments' procuring costs. However, this will hurt local industries and employment. Hence, governments...

Over the last decade, the defense industry has obtained relevance on Brazilian public policies. Departing from the premise that the success of this process requires not only that the Armed Forces have modern equipment and skilled military to operate them, but also that the country retains the...

US military Research and Development (R&D) expenditures arguably represent the best example of mission-oriented policy. They are sizeable, with a clear-cut public purpose (national defense) and with the government being their exclusive beneficiary. Exploiting a longitudinal dataset linking...

We study the effects of different rules of evidence and liability in con- tract litigation. When a contracting firm fails to perform, it may blame the buyer for withholding private information. We show that the evidentiary and liability rules used by the Supreme Court in General Dynamics v. U.S....

We use rich historical data on military procurement to estimate the effects of government spending. We exploit regional variation in military build-ups to estimate an "open economy relative multiplier" of approximately 1.5. We develop a framework for interpreting this estimate and relating it to...

Over the past decade, the United States has radically shifted the way it projects its power overseas. Instead of using full-time employees of foreign affairs agencies to implement its policies, the government now deploys a wide range of contractors and grantees, hired by both for-profit and...

“A House of Cards Falls: Why ‘Too Big to Debar’ is All Slogan and Little Substance” is a critical response to the article, "FCPA Sanctions: Too Big to Debar" by Drury D. Stevenson and Nicholas J. Wagoner, which aptly demonstrates a common, yet fundamentally flawed understanding of the...

Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) enforcement activity is currently at its highest level since enactment of the statute in 1977. There were more enforcement actions brought in 2007 than in the years from 2004 to 2006 combined. The message is clear - the U.S. Government is committed to FCPA...