Do public-private partnerships (PPPs) promote the sustainable development of infrastructure (SDI)? Evidence from China
Engineering, Construction and Architectural Management
ISSN: 0969-9988
Article publication date: 5 November 2024
Abstract
Purpose
To address challenges such as inadequate funding and inefficiency in public infrastructure construction, PPPs have gained significant global traction. This study aims to comprehensively assess the impacts and mechanisms of PPPs on the SDI and to provide rational policy recommendations based on the findings.
Design/methodology/approach
We collated a dataset from 30 Chinese provinces covering the years 2005–2020 as our research sample. The study’s hypotheses are tested using a double fixed-effects model, a chained mediated-effects model and a multidimensional heterogeneity analysis.
Findings
Our findings indicate that PPPs have a facilitating effect on SDI in general. This boost usually lags behind policy implementation and is cyclical in the time dimension. In the spatial dimension, PPPs contribute significantly to SDI in the eastern and western regions, but not in the central region. From the perspective of the dynamics of economic, social and industrial development, PPPs in economically backward areas are difficult to promote SDI, promote it the most in economically medium regions and are slightly less in economically developed regions than in medium regions. This promotion effect has an inverted U-shaped relationship with social development and diminishes with industrial structure upgrading. Finally, due to the negative relationship between PPPs and social development and between social development and SDI, PPPs are shown to contribute to SDI and are identified as critical paths. However, PPPs suppress SDI by inhibiting economic and industrial development.
Originality/value
This study makes three novel contributions to the existing body of knowledge: (1) we innovatively introduce the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) into the field of infrastructure research, offering fresh perspectives on SDI enhancement; (2) revealing the mechanisms by which PPPs affect SDI through the three dimensions of economic, social and industrial development enabling policymakers to better understand and optimize resource allocation and improve planning, design and management of PPP projects for sustainable infrastructure and (3) we assess the spatiotemporal variances of PPPs’ effects on SDI and the diversity across regions at different social, economic and industrial structures developmental stages, offering critical insights to global decision-makers to devise tailored policy measures.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
This research was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No: 72261035); the Humanities and Social Sciences Project of Educational Cooperation between Provincial and University in Yunnan Province (No: SYSX202202); the Joint Special Project for Basic Applied Research in Agriculture in Yunnan Province (No: 202401BD070001-065); the General Project of Joint Special Research in Agriculture for Basic Applied Research in Yunnan Province (No: 202101BD070001-061); the Humanities and Social Sciences Research Project of the Ministry of Education (No: 22XJA630006).The authors thank the College of Architecture and Engineering and the College of Economics and Management at Yunnan Agricultural University and the School of Economics and Management at Dalian University of Technology for their support. The authors also appreciate the editorial and reviewing teams for their valuable feedback, which improved the quality of this paper.
Citation
Ren, F., Huang, Y., Xia, Z., Xu, X., Li, X., Chi, J., Li, J., Wang, Y. and Song, J. (2024), "Do public-private partnerships (PPPs) promote the sustainable development of infrastructure (SDI)? Evidence from China", Engineering, Construction and Architectural Management, Vol. ahead-of-print No. ahead-of-print. https://doi.org/10.1108/ECAM-12-2023-1267
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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