Dynamics of Economic Competitiveness and the Provision of Quality Infrastructure through PPP Model

At a more global scale, the economic importance of infrastructure has been the subject of extensive research since the late 1980s (Finkenzeller and Dechant, 2009). Impelled by the mounting pressure associated with increasing demand for infrastructure coupled with the growing significance of infrastructure, the World Economic Forum (2008) has been committed to an annual global competitiveness report (GCR) reflecting on infrastructure as one of the key drivers of a countryís economic attractiveness and competitiveness, next only to institutional framework. However, there is a growing gap between infrastructure requirements and the ability of the public sector to adequately meet those needs given the large scale of infrastructure financing and governmentsí budgetary constraints, consequently, there is a cogent need to seek alternative and innovative vehicles to finance infrastructure. In the recent time, government across jurisdictions have begun to accept the public private partnership model as a practicable option for mitigating the escalating infrastructure investment shortfall, and this is expected to persist into the future until there is a more viable alternative to the PPP model. A total of 1887 PPP transactions have been identified from the infrastructure journal (IJ) database, covering a twenty two quarterly periods (Q1 2005-Q2 2010). The study examines the various financing options and trend of PPP investment across these periods using the time series modeler (TSM) to determine significant predictors/sectors of PPP transactions globally and across the leading countries within each region, revealing an enhanced signal of investorsí focus and disposition within the PPP markets.