The key role MNEs play in the global economy through international investment, and the changing landscape of such investment as MNEs as well as host and home economies adjust to changing conditions and objectives, make it important to understand trends and developments with respect to FDI and...

This article analyzes the evolution of the OECD over half a century, from 1961 to 2011, from two perspectives: phases in the international political economy and the literature on IPE. By so doing, we uncover two paradoxes. Firstly, we find that the organization’s evolution closely mirrored...

Recognising the declining weight of its members in the world economy, the OECD, formerly known as a ‘club of rich, industrialised nations,’ is undergoing unprecedented organizational reform, including a more inclusive membership logic, engagement with new global players, and outreach to...

Public services are a key facet of everyday life for all citizens and societies, so it is surprising that only scant attention has been paid to the emergence of the new approaches to them in an increasingly integrated EU. We critically examine these new approaches in this article. We show how...

Public infrastructure services have been subject to dramatic regulatory reform since the 1980s in the European Union, particularly privatization, at the national level, and increased liberalization and deregulation, via the Single Market Programme. Despite this ambitious reform programme, there...

As a consequence of liberalization policies in the European Union (EU), a number of formerly inward-looking incumbents in telecommunications and electricity transformed themselves into some of the world’s leading Multinationals. The relationship between liberalization and incumbent...

This article evaluates EU policies on public services - particularly public network services - from the citizens' point of view. It is first argued that citizens´ perceptions about these services are important because they are essential for quality of life, but also because they exhibit...

Since the late twentieth century, a significant number of public service providers operating in networks, previously defined as nationally-bound entities largely owned and controlled by the State, have embarked on aggressive expansion strategies abroad. This transnationalisation was a...

Privatization, recognized as one of the most important economic policy reforms from the 1970s, has attracted significant attention from scholars, and the literature on the topic is now vast. Yet there is little agreement on the reasons why governments privatized. Three dominant paradigms...

The ongoing financial crisis has exacerbated concerns about the need to redefine the role and characteristics of regulation. In the case of public services, deregulation was justified by the benefits that would accrue to consumers, though scant attention was paid to actual consumer experience in...