This paper analyzes the potential and the limits of project finance for the provision of local public services and compares them with alternative instruments in the light of current regulation. The main requirements for project finance, even in non “pure” forms, to justify its complex network of contracts, appear to be the presence of synergies between construction and service provision, the allocation of a substantial part of market risk to the private partner, and infrastructure that is large in scale. The available data and a survey carried out in the Emilia-Romagna region show that instruments similar to project finance are widespread in local public services. Yet the actual features of public finance in Italy seem to be far from those that would normally justify its use. The main reason for using project financing has often been to avoid an immediate and direct financial burden to the public administration or to bypass overly rigid rules in the public management of some services.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
Find related papers by JEL classification: D61 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Allocative Efficiency; Cost-Benefit Analysis D81 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Criteria for Decision-Making under Risk and Uncertainty H44 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - Publicly Provided Goods: Mixed Markets H54 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - Infrastructures H76 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - Other Expenditure Categories L33 - Industrial Organization - - Nonprofit Organizations and Public Enterprise - - - Boundaries of Public and Private Enterprise; Privatization; Contracting Out L90 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Transportation and Utilities - - - General
This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports: