ABSTRACT
Public procurement is an activity that primarily has been regulated in detail in the EU in order to achieve an economic goal: the free movement of goods and services with regard to public contracts. As the topic is closely linked to the internal market the relevance of economic analysis is evident. Legal research is equally important as the primary tool for achieving the objective is a legal regime that ensures a high degree of equal treatment of tenderers and transparency with regard to tender procedures covered by the regime. However, it is remarkable that academic research only to a very limited extent has combined law and economics and that economists and lawyers typically are not aware of the ongoing research in other fields than their own. The purpose of the 1st Interdisciplinary Symposium on Public Procurement held in Rome in June 2011 and the current publication was to open up a fruitful dialogue between the disciplines and thereby to make a difference by establishing a forum for dialogue, orally and in writing.
