Archives

Article by Moritz Liebe & David Howarth This paper focuses on the important role of the European Investment Bank (EIB) in the European Union’s promotion of Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs).  The EIB as the EU’s main lending body has provided senior debt to PPP-like projects since the late 1980s and is regarded as one of the […]

Article by Anthony M. Bertelli, Valentina Mele, Andrew B. Whitford. This article addresses the question of the failure of infrastructure PPPs.  It addresses two main research questions.  What defines failure for infrastructure PPPs? What conditions make failure more likely? The authors distinguish between failure of projects as a state condition and the sources of risk […]

This paper provides an in-depth analysis of the performance of PPP projects in the Netherlands.  It concentrates on Dutch road and waterway infrastructure projects governed by DBFM contracts and evaluates ex-post realized PPP performance compared to traditional procurement.  The chosen performance criteria are cost, time, quality, and innovation.  The article also evaluates five dominant explanations […]

Article by Zhen Li, Yanyan Shen and Maogang Tang There has been a boom in PPP activity in China in recent years.  According to the authors of this paper, as of December 2019, the official data indicated that 9,440 projects, with an investment value of RMB 14.4 trillion were at different stages of development.  However, […]

Study by Beatriz Cuadrado-Ballesteros and Noemí Peña-Miguel The authors of this paper contend that corruption is a feature of many areas and activities of public administration and occurs frequently in collaborations between the public and private sectors, or so-called public-private partnerships (PPPs).  They review the literature that supports this assertion and seek to empirically test […]

Study by Martin Mayer and Julieta-Elena (Wie) Yusuf This article examines the performance of P3s in terms of public value.  The authors note that achieving balance between public value and private profit has been a challenge for P3s and the topic is under-researched.  In that sense, the article covers a relatively new direction in P3 […]

Study by Veronica Vecchi, Angelo Tanese, and Stephen Osborne. These authors of this paper assert that the P3 approach to infrastructure delivery is under attack.  They point to the mixed evidence about the achievements of P3s and how the level of P3 activity has slowed down in countries where it has been used extensively over […]

Article by Gianluca F. Delfino. Understanding the conditions for which PPPs are successful in serving public needs has attracted increased attention in the academic literature.  On the one hand, research shows that the performance measurement systems provided for in PPP contracts are usually effective in ensuring that incentive and monitoring practices function successfully.  On the […]

Study by Veronica Vecchi, Niccolò Cusumano & Francesca Casalini. The Italian healthcare system provides an interesting social infrastructure case for examining PPP performance.  Italy has leveraged PPP solutions extensively for the construction and modernization of its hospital network.  Between 2002 and 2014, 21 PPP contracts, worth EUR 2.4 billion, were awarded and a total of […]

Study by Gary Healy, Dónal Palcic & Eoin Reeves This month’s column departs from the norm as I cover one of my own co-authored papers.  The paper covers PPPs and broadband infrastructure, the importance of which is in sharp focus since the Covid-19 pandemic.  As academics are not necessarily the best judges of their own […]