Infrastructure Public Private Partnership Investments: A Comparative Analysis of Western Balkan and Emerging Countries

The private sector participation is crucial to country development bringing more funds, technical knowledge and efficiency in several sectors (energy, telecommunication, transport, water and sewerage), particularly to developing countries. The demand for infrastructure projects has increased considerably in the recent years especially in emerging and developing countries, which can be attributed primarily to the rapid economic growth and the vast urbanization and industrialization of these economies. The aim of this paper is to analyze the determinant factors of Public Private Partnerships in infrastructure development in Western Balkan and Emerging Countries. This will build on previous empirical analysis performed and the data of World Bank Database for Public Participation in Infrastructure for the period 2002–2013. The study focuses on the Western Balkan and Emerging countries because these countries need PPP arrangements in infrastructure. Additionally, the Western Balkan countries will need to integrate into the European Union in the near future, and therefore, the needed structural reforms and development strategies require much more investments. For the purpose of this study a comparative analysis of countries of the Western Balkan and Emerging economies is undertaken by using data of the Public Participation in Infrastructure projects by type of sectors for the period 2002–2013. The result of the analysis confirms previous conclusions that countries with small size of the market have lower number of Public Private Partnerships as compared to those with big size of the market. Regarding macroeconomic stability the data strongly confirm that macroeconomic situation favor foreign investors to get involved in Public Private Partnership projects, but their small size of the market discourages these countries to have high Public Private Partnership projects.