Editorial: The Unresolved Nature of Public-Private Partnerships

Abstract

Over the past three decades, public-private partnerships (PPPs) have swept the world as the preferred approach to deliver large, complex infrastructure projects. Globally, trillions of dollars of infrastructure have been provided through PPPs that bundle some combination of infrastructure design, construction, financing, operations and maintenance into a single concession contract. The rationale for using PPPs has varied by jurisdiction and evolved over time, but in general can be grouped into two global waves. In the first wave between the early 1990s and the mid 2000s, PPPs were motivated by cash strapped governments looking to fund much needed infrastructure through private money, in a way that would be off balance sheet and therefore not count as part of the public debt. The discourse around PPPs during this period was also highly ideological, framed by proponents as a way to empower the market-driven private sector that was inherently more efficient than government and their frequent reliance on unionized labour. After years of pitched ideological battles, a second wave of PPPs emerged in the mid 2000s that were more specifically motivated by technical objectives. PPPs were widely rebranded as an approach to deliver value for money. Particularly important was a desire to transfer major project risks from government where cost overruns, delays and poor maintenance were all too common to the private sector. PPPs were proposed as pay for performance contracts that would lock-in funding to pay for long-term facility maintenance, an area that governments often shirk after shiny mega-projects open. Additionally, spurring private sector led innovation became an important goal for PPPs that would lower costs and improve the benefits for users. Alongside trillions of dollars of infrastructure delivered through PPP models, PPPs have become an object of intense study. Over the years, hundreds, and more likely thousands of academic papers and more than a dozen books have been written examining all aspects of PPPs: engineering, legal, accounting, finance, urban planning, public administration, political science, and economics. Through this interdisciplinary body of literature, it is now widely recognized that PPPs are both a technical approach to project delivery and a political tool for statecraft. Nevertheless, despite all the infrastructure money invested through PPPs over decades and the intense research attention, some basic, fundamental questions remain largely unanswered. Do PPPs deliver value for money (if the concept can even be defined)? Do PPPs effectively spur innovation and transfer risk? Do they provide better outcomes than alternative procurement approaches? Who wins and who loses from PPP? To what extent are PPPs a language game designed to rebrand efforts to expand the role of the private sector into everyday life? JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC POLICY REFORM 2022, VOL. 25, NO. 2, 81–84 https://doi.org/10.1080/17487870.2022.2080408