Thais Rangel

Innovation in public-private partnerships (PPPs): the Spanish case of highway concessions

This article identifies the factors that determine innovation in transport PPPs in Spain. Innovation is an important way of achieving efficiency but it is not an intrinsic characteristic of PPP projects. The authors describe the multiple regression model they devised to estimate innovation. The results show that PPP contracts can be designed to maximize innovation in R&D. However, there does not appear to be greater innovation in any other areas. The information provided has important implications for public service organizations considering new contracts with the private sector.

The influence of economic incentives linked to road safety indicators on accidents: The case of toll concessions in Spain

The goal of this paper is to evaluate whether the incentives incorporated in toll highway concession contracts in order to encourage private operators to adopt measures to reduce accidents are actually effective at improving safety. To this end, we implemented negative binomial regression models using information about highway characteristics and accident data from toll highway concessions in Spain from 2007 to 2009. Our results show that even though road safety is highly influenced by variables that are not managed by the contractor, such as the annual average daily traffic (AADT), the percentage of heavy vehicles on the highway, number of lanes, number of intersections and average speed; the implementation of these incentives has a positive influence on the reduction of accidents and injuries. Consequently, this measure seems to be an effective way of improving safety performance in road networks.

Does EU support contribute to economically successful Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs)? A panel data analysis of road PPP projects in Spain

The EU infrastructure policy has relied on Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) as a means to successfully deliver infrastructure of benefit for the EU. To reach its infrastructure policy objectives, the EU has implemented support mechanisms aimed at facilitating the delivery of PPPs. This article is aimed at evaluating to what extent these mechanisms have actually contributed to improving the economic performance of PPPs. To that end, we have selected the case of Spanish road PPPs for empirical analysis. The main result shows that EU support positively influences the economic performance of PPP projects. This is caused by the fact that the EU conditions its financial support on a project’s meeting a set of requirements that help assure the success of the project. From this result, we obtain a set of conclusions that may be generalised to other cases, and provide a contribution to the body of knowledge on PPPs.

The Europe 2020 project bond initiative: an alternative to finance infrastructure in Europe

AbstractThe economic and financial crisis that struck Europe over the last few years has imposed much stricter capital and liquidity requirements for commercial banks thereby reducing their ability to provide funding to infrastructure projects. To circumvent this problem the European Union has promoted the Europe 2020 Project Bond Initiative (PBI) aimed at using European funds for credit enhancement to increase the appetite of institutional investors – such as pension funds and insurance companies – to boost large-scale infrastructure financing. In this paper we describe the specific constraints and attractiveness of the PBI within Europe using the SWOT methodology to analyse the information coming from both pilot case studies and the responses that institutional investors and other stakeholders provided to the EC public consultation about the PBI. On the basis of this information we found that even though the initiative may contribute to facilitate infrastructure financing in Europe, there are still some...