Search results

In 2017, US federal agencies awarded over $86 billion in contracts to small businesses owned by members of under-represented groups (minorities, women, service-disabled veterans, and certified businesses located in economically distressed areas). The vast scale and scope of public procurement coupled with policies for supporting small disadvantaged businesses may drive federal agencies toward greater inclusiveness in awarding contracts, which may shape broader societal patterns of economic participation and social equity. However, the level of inclusiveness varies considerably across different federal agencies. The authors posit that differences in three key organizational mechanisms associated with federal agencies’ decision-making processes – administrative discretion, workplace discrimination, and legislative oversight – influence an agency’s level of inclusiveness in awarding contracts. They test these ideas using the annual small business procurement activities of 41 federal agencies, large and small, from 2002 to 2011. The authors find empirical evidence for economically significant effects of discretion, discrimination, and oversight on an agency’s inclusiveness in awarding contracts and discuss the scholarly, managerial, and policy implications.

Resurgent interest in the life and work of the Italian Cambridge economist Piero Sraffa is leading to New Directions in Sraffa Scholarship. This chapter introduces readers to some of these developments. First and perhaps foremost is the fact that as of September 2016 Sraffa’s archival material has been uploaded onto the website of the Wren Library, Trinity College, Cambridge University, as digital colour images; this chapter introduces readers to the history of these events. This history provides sharp relief on the extant debates over the role of the archival material in leading to the final publication of Production of Commodities by Means of Commodities, and readers are provided a brief sketch of these matters. The varied nature of Sraffa scholarship is demonstrated by the different aspects of Sraffa’s intellectual legacy which are developed and discussed in the various entries of our Symposium. The conclusion is reached that we are on the cusp of an exciting phase change of tremendous potential in Sraffa scholarship.