When are public-private partnerships (PPPs) better than conventional provision and regulated privatization? And should PPP contracts be structured and governed when this is the case?. We show that the defining features of a PPP are (i) bundling of construction and operation, (ii) private but temporary ownership of assets and (iii) intertemporal risk sharingwith the public sector. Thus some characteristics of PPPs are akin to privatization while others are similar to conventional provision. Since incentives for efficient building and management are related to bundling, PPPs are closer to privatization in this regard. As the discounted government budget under a PPP is similar to that under conventional provision, PPPs are closer to conventional provision when it comes to budgetary accounting. We also show that avoiding distortionary taxation and relieving strained government budgets are weak arguments for PPPs. We examine the institutional requirements for a successful PPP program and emphasize the need for an independent supervisor of PPPs (and in general of all public works) and a Committee of Experts to award when conflicts or the need for renegotiation arises. Lack of rule of law alters the choice between conventional provision and PPPs in favor of the former, as there is less risk of regulatory takings in a short termconstruction contract than in a long lived PPP. In the case where quality service is contractible, the the PPP contract that optimally balances demand risk, user-fee distortions and the opportunity cost of public funds, features a minimum revenue guarantee and a revenue cap that differ from those observed in practice. This contract can be implemented via a competitive auction with realistic informational requirements.
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.
Publisher Info
Paper provided by Centro de Economía Aplicada, Universidad de Chile in its series Documentos de Trabajo with number
257.
Length: Date of creation: 2009 Date of revision: Handle: RePEc:edj:ceauch:257
Contact details of provider:
For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its listing, contact: () The email address of this maintainer does not seem to be valid anymore. Please ask to update the entry or send us the correct address..
Related research
Keywords:
Other versions of this item:
This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:
References listed on IDEAS Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.: