Search results

Global crises have become increasingly recurrent events that jeopardize public-private partnerships (PPPs). In this context, the purpose of this paper is to expose the PPP-crisis research agenda by combining bibliometric and network analyses.

The PPP literature associated with global crises between the 2008 global financial crisis and 2022 was analyzed in three stages: (1) paper selection and screening for the inclusion/exclusion of articles relevant to this research, (2) semantic network development for examining thematic relationships among selected papers by considering the co-occurrence of keywords within the chosen studies and (3) calculation of network metrics for analysis.

The paper identified six research avenues for the PPP-crisis agenda: public interest, relational governance, risk management, user-pay PPPs, crisis management and financial performance. The PPP-crisis literature has spread significantly in the last five years driven by the case study approaches on a national or regional basis. Conversely, non-crisis periods generate room to strengthen user-pay PPPs and relational governance. The pandemic and post-pandemic times shared the priorities of the 2008 financial crisis but also strengthened the management of the risks and the structural drivers of the global crisis.

This study demonstrates that during global crisis periods, the public interest and financial performance gain relevance in a detriment of structural solutions to social legitimacy erosion of PPPs because of the urgency of giving tools to the public and private sectors to tackle the financial issues, which steer future issues for PPPs.

The influence of internal and external factors impacting the duration of the concession period in Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) is essential for project outcomes considering its implications on operational expenses, payback periods in project finance and long-term uncertainties. In this context, this research analyzes a set of key factors that may influence the duration of the concession period of PPP transport projects.

A triangulation approach combining both quantitative and qualitative methods was employed. This mixed-method approach incorporates an in-depth literature review to identify the factors that potentially affect the public sector decision on concession periods within transportation PPP programs. The information from all the transportation PPP projects (roads, ports, rails and airports) procured in 58 countries in Europe, Africa and Asia was retrieved from public databases, official records in each of the countries and academic papers. The information retrieved from each of the identified parameters was further examined through analysis of variance and linear regression to test the hypotheses.

Results demonstrate that user-pay PPPs should restrict minimum concession periods to prevent excessive user tariffs, which could result in societal resistance and potential long-term traffic underperformance. Additionally, PPP market’s willingness to accept longer concession periods depends on country’s risk profile and regulatory framework transparency. Conversely, high-risk countries may seek longer concession periods by utilizing payment mechanisms that allocate demand risk to the public sector.

This study provides relevant insights for better negotiating the concession duration to increase the value for money associated with the PPP project.