Appropriate laws and regulations are an essential tool to direct the action of procurers toward the public good and avoid corruption and misallocation of resources. Common laws and regulations across regions, nations and continents potentially allow for the further opening of markets and ventures to newcomers and new ideas to satisfy public demand. This book collects original contributions, from both economists and lawyers, related to the new European Union Directives just approved in 2014 by the EU Parliament.

Uniquely, this book combines juridical and technical expertise so as to find a common terrain and language to debate the specific issues that a Public Administration in need of advancing and modernizing has to face. This format features, for each section, an introductory exchange between two experts of different disciplines, made of a series of sequential interactions between an economist and a lawyer that write and follow-up on one another. This is to enrich the liveliness of the debate and improve the mutual understanding between the two professions.

There are four sections characterized in this book: supporting social considerations via public procurement; green public procurement; innovation through innovative partnerships; and Lots - the Economic and Legal Challenges of Centralized Procurement.

This book will be of interest to policy-makers, practitioners working in the field of EU public procurement as well as academics.

Gustavo Piga is Professor of Economics at the University of Rome Tor Vergata, Italy.

Tünde Tátrai is associate professor at the Corvinus University of Budapest, Hungary.