Martha Gross, PhD, will be presenting a new paper entitled "Aligning Public-Private Partnership Contracts with Public Objectives for Transportation Infrastructure" on October 27th in room 300 of Y2E2.

Abstract: The public-private partnership (PPP) approach is often considered as an option for procuring large-scale transportation infrastructure projects, whose substantial costs can otherwise delay their delivery due to a lack of available public funding. But some recent PPPs, both in the US and abroad, have received critical attention due to perceived misalignment of these projects' outcomes with public-sector objectives. For highway PPPs in particular, a frequent target of scrutiny is the subset of public objectives which involves these contracts' toll-pricing goals, which can generally be classified as (1) achieving a specific toll rate, (2) managing congestion, or (3) minimizing state subsidy/maximizing revenue. With the diversity of PPP contracting options, though, the link between these outcomes and the underlying PPP contract structure is not clear. Hence the central question arises: Given specific policy objectives for road pricing, how should public owners select PPP contract strategies which support these outcomes? This inquiry lends itself well to exploration via qualitative comparative analysis (QCA), a case-based approach which combines quantitative and qualitative aspects to analyze a limited sample size without requiring highly detailed, and often commercially sensitive, project data. Salient characteristics of 18 domestic and international PPPs were quantified and evaluated using QCA to identify patterns of contractual elements which supported each of the three pricing-related objectives above. The results provide institutional guidance for public agencies seeking to structure future PPP procurements, and several applications of these findings to current PPPs illustrate the suitability of these recommendations.

Posted by ashby at October 24, 2011 8:46 PM