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The British North American colonies were the first western economies to rely on legislature-issued paper monies as an important internal media of exchange. This system arose piecemeal. In the absence of banks and treasuries that exchanged paper monies at face value for specie monies on demand, colonial governments experimented with other ways to anchor their paper monies to real values in the economy. These mechanisms included tax-redemption, land-backed loans, sinking funds, interest-bearing notes, and legal tender laws. I assess and explain the structure and performance of these mechanisms. This was monetary experimentation on a grand scale.

This chapter focuses on policy intervention that has grown in popularity in the UK since the financial crisis of 2008. The focus is on inclusive growth and more specifically, community wealth building. The concept has been picked up by institutions and think tanks at multiple scales from the OECD to local government. We aim to address the tensions in community wealth building and in particular how local authorities in the UK are adjusting their procurements strategies to increase the tendering capabilities of SMEs in their political geography.

We introduce a UK-based study utilising an ESRC-funded case study, desktop research and semi-structured interviews to investigate how well the region of Greater Manchester (GM) ecosystem was equipped to prepare small firms to learn how to compete for public contracts with evidence applicable to other large-scale tenders.

Overall, at the time of writing business support across GM does not create the value proposition of enabling small firms to be capable at tendering and thus undermines community wealth building (CWB) efforts. The advice on offer is sparse; it offers partial or no advice about different capabilities and is often limited to simple guidance stating procurement rules and compliance demands. Information is often abstract and technical support is also fragmented, making it unlikely that small firms will find resources. Advice fails to engage with evidence on how small firms learn and to provide a learning process. In particular, support to raise absorptive capacity and strategic commitment to tendering, build basic tender readiness and develop and refresh tendering capability is not evident. Training, coaching and peer learning are largely absent.

UK appears to be an experimental ground for CWB with dedicated think tanks and several examples such as the ‘Preston Model’. GM is a suitably sized and comparable region to offer transferable knowledge and indicators to support regions to innovate. We offer a ‘Dashboard of Priorities’ to enhance business support to SMEs so they can win at tendering, thus strengthening CWB policy and impact. Furthermore, we are adding clarity to a fuzzy definition of CWB and define inclusive procurement. We assist global policymakers to answer the fundamental question; are we doing all that we can with these significant resources to create an economy which truly benefits the people? By examining the ideas of community wealth building and inclusive procurement from a local authority and SME perspective, we can extrapolate finings for international comparison and offer an in-depth look at how the execution of this policy can be strengthened to deliver maximum benefit to their communities. The implication is to focus attention on how institutions (public or private), by way of better execution, can enhance the economic resilience of their own local ecosystems/places.

Fluctuations in the tender price index have an adverse effect on the construction sector and the economy at large. This is largely due to the positive relationship that exists between the construction industry and economic growth. The consequences of these variations include cost overruns and schedule delays, among others. An accurate forecast of the tender price index is good for controlling the uncertainty associated with its variation. In the present study, the efficacy of using an adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system (ANFIS) for tender price forecasting is investigated. In addition, the Box–Jenkins model, which is considered a benchmark technique, was used to evaluate the performance of the ANFIS model. The results demonstrate that the ANFIS model is superior to the Box–Jenkins model in terms of the accuracy and reliability of the forecast. The ANFIS could provide an accurate and reliable forecast of the tender price index in the medium term (i.e. over a three-year period). This chapter provides evidence of the advantages of applying nonlinear modelling techniques (such as the ANFIS) to tender price index forecasting. Although the proposed ANFIS model is applied to the tender price index in this study, it can also be applied to a wider range of problems in the field of construction engineering and management.

An important aspect of good governance is a well-managed government procurement system. This has a direct impact on the extent and quality of a country's infrastructure and the effectiveness of its public services. Two key principles underpin a well-managed procurement system: value for money from the goods, services, and public works, which are procured, and fair access to procurement opportunities. Arguably, competition and transparency in the procurement process are necessary conditions for both. Yet despite this, most of the states of Southeast Asia have been reluctant to create an openly competitive and transparent government procurement system. This has been in part reflected in the fact that none them have become signatories to the WTO's Government Procurement Agreement of 1994 with the notable exception of Singapore. This Agreement seeks to promote international access to the government procurement market in goods, services, and public works by mandating open competition and transparent procedures.

Russia's size – both in terms of population and geography, spanning 11 time zones, 89 oblasts (states or regions) and autonomous republics and its privatization program, encompassing some 100,000 small-scale enterprises, 25,000 medium to large firms, and 300 or so of its largest firms, made its privatization program the largest sale/transfer of assets conducted among the transition economies, with the possible exception of China. Comparisons by many of the program's critics, and there are many, to Poland, Hungary, or the Czech republic are invidious, especially the latter two countries whose populations are similar to just that of greater Moscow.

In this chapter, the nature and extent of corruption in the construction industry is considered from a worldwide perspective, but particularly in the context of research conducted in South Africa. The definition of corruption is expanded to include conflict of interest and unethical conduct. Corruption in the construction industry is found to be universal and pervasive, occurring in all areas, at all stages, at all levels, and in all forms. A simple triangular model of corruption is replaced by a more complex four-dimensional risk-based model. The challenge for the construction industry, in combating corruption, will essentially require multilateral action in all four dimensions of the enhanced model: eliminating and reducing opportunities where possible; relieving the pressures to commit corrupt acts; rebutting the rationales and arguments used to excuse corruption; and substantially improving and innovating more forensic methods of detection. While the decision to engage in corruption is risk-based, particularly in terms of the capacity to evade detection; in essence corruption is a cultural and moral issue for society.

The purchasing power of public sector organizations can be used to promote strategic policy objectives such as sustainability, innovation, and the concept of circular economy (CE). In Denmark, total greenhouse gas emissions from public procurement (PP) activities comprise approximately 12 million tons CO₂eq/year. Thus, if sustainability criteria and CE are considered in PP, there is a potential for environmental savings and for driving innovation toward circularity. Directive 2014/24/EU on PP makes it possible to include sustainability criteria or CE in public tenders. In order to aid this process, the case company Vraa Dampvaskeri has, together with researchers from Aalborg University, developed a guide for sustainable PP focusing on workwear and laundry services. In this chapter, we explore how this guide has been used in practice. This includes a consideration of the way in which such a guide can aid the process of setting sustainable and circular criteria in public tenders, thus supporting a transition to CE. Although the guide is now supported by national criteria for textiles in the Danish Partnership for Green PP, these tools cannot stand alone, as their use by PP officers is voluntary. Market engagement is imperative for inclusion of sustainability and CE in tenders, and the involvement of user groups is essentially important.

In this paper we present some results of our exploratory research about Hungarian tender buyers activity and culture. We try to formulate some questions for future research. Hungarian bidding habits and behavior are not yet deeply researched. The goal of this pilot study is to take a snapshot of the Hungarian tendering processes from the point of view of the seller-buyer interaction. Content analysis has been chosen as the methodological framework because of its potential for examining not well structured, symbolic, mainly behavioral or qualitative data. The most important findings drawn from analysing 515 Hungarian calls for tender published in May and June 1996 are as follows: • ⊎buyers use a tendering process mainly if it is obligatory by law; • ⊎vernmental and institutional buyers represent more than 75 percent of bids; • ⊎prequalification tenders have a law rate; • ⊎projects are the most frequented objects of bids