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Abstract by the authors: This paper focuses on the important role of the European Investment Bank (EIB) in the European Union’s promotion of Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs). We first demonstrate the relative importance of the EIB in relation to the European Commission on the promotion of PPPs. We then argue that the activism of the EIB on PPPs can be explained in terms of the bank’s operation as a policy entrepreneur. The paper further explains that the entrepreneurial role of the EIB with regard to PPPs relied massively on the presence of a small number of, principally British, ‘norm entrepreneurs’ who actively promoted the PPP concept and the specific norms that supported it within the EIB. While there are indications that the EIB operated as a rational actor in its promotion of PPPs, we argue that ideas ultimately drove the pro-PPP activism of both individual EIB officials and the institution collectively.
Abstract by the author: This article analyses Climate Public Private Partnerships in the light of EU climate law and includes an economic perspective to explain the objectives and efficiency behind Climate Public Private Partnerships. Climate Public Private Partnerships are regulated by EU public procurement law for which reason the legal cross field between EU climate law and EU public procurement law is analysed to evaluate how EU law supports Climate Public Private Partnerships. Furthermore, the article includes game theory as an instrument to assess Climate Public Private Partnerships under EU law. The article concludes that EU law does not include the sufficient legal support to provide efficient Climate Public Private Partnerships as a tool to reach Europe's climate goals.
Abstract by the authors: Scholars have extensively investigated public value creation and appropriation concerning public services delivered strictly by the government and public–private arrangements, such as public–private partnerships (PPPs). However, such studies often focus on value for money and economic performance criteria. This study examines how public value can be created and appropriated in PPP settings and how public value mechanisms can influence these phenomena. Considering that the literature lacks an integrated and structured analytical framework to assess such phenomena, this conceptual article addresses four mainstream PPP topics regarding public value mechanisms (information sharing, public and private capabilities, risk governance, and stakeholder orientation), which can be associated with PPPs' public value creation (destruction) and appropriation (misappropriation). Thus, this article highlights a need to evaluate PPPs in terms of public value creation beyond the economic performance criteria and fills the literature gap by proposing a public value creation and appropriation framework.
Abstract by the authors: While the contemporary academic discourse regards innovation as an inherent feature of infrastructure public–private partnerships (PPPs), the conceptual link between infrastructure PPPs and innovation is narrowly understood. While most existing studies conceptualize the innovation processes and effects within the context of PPP projects, we argue that the relevance of innovation in infrastructure PPPs goes beyond specific projects. In this conceptual article, we examine why and how infrastructure PPP innovations can shape the evolution of the involved private and public sector organizations – and therefore the respective sectors – more broadly. We show that innovation in the context of PPPs has much broader implications and potential outcomes than as emphasized in the literature so far.
Abstract by the authors: The article examines to what extent Dutch and Spanish officials make trade-offs between process and result accountability during the design, management and adaptation of contracts for public–private partnerships. The countries’ distinct administrative traditions (legalistic versus managerial-oriented, respectively) are expected to be influential. Analysing contracts, policy documents and interviews with 89 Dutch and Spanish project members, the article shows that Dutch administrators focus on outcome accountability, following the tenets of relational governance, whereas Spanish officials opt for process accountability in line with the contractual governance framework in non-clinical services, and for result accountability for clinical services in hospitals.
Abstract by the authors: 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.
Abstract by the authors: Building on recent works that stress the importance of stakeholder engagement in partnerships, we propose a novel benchmarking framework for the evaluation of public–private partnerships. This framework describes mutuality and the preservation of organisational identity as the ideal characteristics of partnerships because they, in turn, encourage stakeholder support for public–private partnerships. Applying this framework to infrastructure public–private partnerships in Ireland, we note that mutual accountability has been weakened following the financial crisis. Meanwhile, consultation with clients such as key public–private partnership stakeholders, which would help articulate organisational identities, remains patchy across the education, justice and health public–private partnership that we investigate. Nonetheless, there are sectoral differences. In education, consultation centres on school principals while ignoring teaching staff and trade unions. In justice, attention is focused primarily on judges. Similarly, in health sector public–private partnerships, there is a strong focus on clinicians. Overall, private sector-driven consultation efforts are primarily pragmatic, with a focus on preventing delays and the dissatisfaction of key clients who could prevent future projects from materialising. We suggest that the combination of this calculated approach to consultation, together with the delegation of public–private partnership contracting to an arm’s-length government agency, is likely to promote a similar depoliticisation of Irish public–private partnerships as has been observed in other countries. We argue that the potentially harmful stakeholder disengagement that this might encourage can be addressed through a concerted set of measures focusing on improved transparency of decision-making, as well as frameworks that mandate client and public consultation.
Abstract by the authors: This article examines to what degree citizens and societal stakeholders are involved in Public–Private Partnership (PPP) projects, what factors account for their involvement, and what the effects are on the performance and innovativeness of the projects. This research, based on a survey in 2014 consisting of 144 respondents involved in Dutch PPP projects, shows that although trustful relationships between actors enhance the inclusion of societal parties, the presence of a contract that allows for flexibility leads to more citizen involvement. Furthermore, we found that the involvement of stakeholders leads to more innovative projects but not necessarily to better performing projects.
Abstract by the authors: This article introduces a process framework based on the realist social theory for studying governing in ongoing public–private partnerships (PPPs). Contractual and relational practices are defined as activities enacted and re-created by virtue of actors’ dual positions: at both the partnership and the parent organizational levels. In PPPs, complementarities and contradictions between public, rule-bureaucratic logic and private, market-oriented logic define structural demands on actors. Nonpredictive and innovative governing activities emerge from the actors’ reflexive capacity to balance different demands. The framework allows the examination of the complex interplay of relational and contractual practices, illustrated in a PPP Dutch case.
Abstract by the authors: In explaining public–private partnership (PPP) performance, both contractual and relational conditions play a role. Research has shown that these conditions may complement each other in successful PPPs. However, which specific combinations of conditions and how these combinations may influence PPP performance remains unclear. Building on the ideas of neo-institutional economics, principal–agent theory, relational contracting, and governance theories, this article explores the mix and match of contractual aspects and relational characteristics in successful PPP projects. A fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) of 25 PPP projects in the Netherlands and Flanders (Belgium) was used to test how contractual factors, such as the use of sanctions and risk allocation, and relational conditions, such as trust and conflict management, jointly shape the performance of PPPs. The results show three different combinations of conditions that match with high performing PPPs. These configurations often consist of a mix of contractual and relational conditions, which confirms our initial expectation that these factors complement each other, but a combination of only relational conditions is also present.
Abstract by the authors: In the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, public private partnerships (PPP) can prove useful to close the healthcare investment gap and accelerate long-term recovery, by matching public and private money. Despite their extensive application in the delivery of major infrastructure projects globally, their performance remains contested. Drawing on a unique set of data of PPP contracts for healthcare investments in Italy, the paper explores the antecedents (namely, policies, institutions, and contracts), that have influenced the capacity of PPP contracts to deliver performance, measured in terms of value for money (VfM), and contract stability. Results show that although explicit policy goals have a clear contribution, VfM can benefit from competent central PPP institutions, which should play a hands-on role in the planning, design, and project management activities. At the same time, centralised PPP units, if not combined with local competent authorities and strong governance mechanisms, may increase the risk of contract renegotiation.
Abstract by the authors: Public-private partnerships (PPPs) are widely spread long-term arrangements between governments and strategic private partner(s). One of their objectives is to reduce the financial pressure on the public treasury with regard to new investments. PPPs have been employed within the health care sector which, in turn, carries a huge social burden. In Portugal, for instance, PPPs in health care concern bundling hospital infrastructure and clinical services management. Notwithstanding the need to ensure sustainability and efficient use of hospital resources, it is clearly compulsory to guarantee that patients receive appropriate and timely care, with maximum security, and equitable manner. Still, little or even no attention has been paid in the literature to the clinical response capacity of PPP hospitals and to the populism arguing that these entities have a lower social performance than typical public hospitals. This study uses robust benchmarking methodologies alongside recent data about Portuguese hospitals (FY2012-FY2017) to demystify this idea and to demonstrate that, actually, PPP hospitals can deliver health care services with social performance levels at least as good as public hospitals.
Abstract by the authors: How and why has the formal policy development on PPPs in Denmark evolved? How and why do PPP projects develop in Danish healthcare sector? Despite limited policy guidelines and no PPP Act, a regional approach to PPPs has occurred in the healthcare sector. There are active projects in five hospital cases that use the PPP model. PPP projects in the Danish healthcare sector develop from a mixture of reasons, which include strategic interventions from finance institutions, change in specific formal rules on financing, and necessity for regional governments to find alternatives to public financing.
Abstract by the authors: Utilizando el instrumento de las asociaciones público-privadas (app) del tipo de contrato concesional, los gobiernos logran sus objetivos de política pública cuando delegan la responsabilidad sobre la construcción de infraestructura pública y la provisión de servicios a consorcios privados. Las app, como instituciones híbridas, incorporan desafíos de agenteprincipal en la implementación de políticas públicas, dado que los agentes privados pueden tener diferentes metas a las de las burocracias. Los gobiernos deben encontrar formas de gestionar los consorcios privados para que implementen objetivos de política pública a pesar de la asimetría de información inherente en las relaciones principal-agente y en presencia de diferentes lógicas institucionales (conflictivas): Estado versus mercado. Es posible que los gobiernos no siempre tengan éxito en la superación de estos conflictos y su fracaso para lograr los objetivos de política pública declarados puede dañar los valores públicos, como la rendición de cuentas, la transparencia, la responsabilidad, la capacidad de respuesta y la calidad. Para determinar empíricamente en qué medida los gobiernos logran salvaguardar los valores públicos en las app, se ha empleado un estudio de caso múltiple que involucra siete proyectos concesionales en España y los Países Bajos. El análisis demuestra que los gobiernos ejercen control sobre las operaciones de los consorcios privados y, en general, pueden dar cuenta de sus resultados y pueden imponer una “lógica” estatal. Sin embargo, esto no sucede desde el principio, y no todos los valores públicos se conservan simultáneamente.
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