IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/bri/cmpowp/02-059.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Public and Private Sector Discount Rates in Public-Private Partnerships

Author

Listed:
  • Paul Grout

Abstract

Whether public sector projects should be discounted at a lower rate than private sector projects is a highly contentious issue and one that has spawned an enormous literature. The purpose of this paper is to assess the appropriate private and public sector discount rates in the context of public private partnerships. It is shown that there are powerful arguments for using a higher rate to discount private projects than public sector projects and that failure to recognise this may lead to excessive reliance on public provision. It is important to emphasise, however, that the reason for the divergence is not related to the conventional arguments of incomplete markets or taxation. Finally, we suggest that the results may have far broader implications for private sector involvement in public services.

Suggested Citation

  • Paul Grout, 2002. "Public and Private Sector Discount Rates in Public-Private Partnerships," The Centre for Market and Public Organisation 02/059, The Centre for Market and Public Organisation, University of Bristol, UK.
    • Handle: RePEc:bri:cmpowp:02/059
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.bris.ac.uk/Depts/CMPO/workingpapers/wp59.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. repec:bla:econom:v:38:y:1971:i:152:p:395-412 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Brealey, R A & Cooper, I A & Habib, M A, 1997. "Investment Appraisal in the Public Sector," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 13(4), pages 12-28, Winter.
    3. Bennett, John & Iossa, Elisabetta, 2006. "Building and managing facilities for public services," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(10-11), pages 2143-2160, November.
    4. Oliver Hart, 2003. "Incomplete Contracts and Public Ownership: Remarks, and an Application to Public-Private Partnerships," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 113(486), pages 69-76, March.
    5. Holmstrom, Bengt & Milgrom, Paul, 1987. "Aggregation and Linearity in the Provision of Intertemporal Incentives," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 55(2), pages 303-328, March.
    6. Kenneth J. Arrow & Robert C. Lind, 1974. "Uncertainty and the Evaluation of Public Investment Decisions," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Chennat Gopalakrishnan (ed.), Classic Papers in Natural Resource Economics, chapter 3, pages 54-75, Palgrave Macmillan.
    7. Anonymous, 1968. "Economic and Social Council," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 22(4), pages 989-1001, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Eduardo Engel & Ronald Fischer & Alexander Galetovic, 2013. "The Basic Public Finance Of Public–Private Partnerships," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 11(1), pages 83-111, February.
    2. Paul Grout & Silvia Sonderegger, 2006. "Simple money-based tests for choosing between private and public delivery: a discussion of the issues," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 29(1), pages 93-126, September.
    3. Grout, Paul A., 2005. "Value-for-money measurement in public-private partnerships," EIB Papers 7/2005, European Investment Bank, Economics Department.
    4. David Martimort & Flavio Menezes & Myrna Wooders & ELISABETTA IOSSA & DAVID MARTIMORT, 2015. "The Simple Microeconomics of Public-Private Partnerships," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 17(1), pages 4-48, February.
    5. Elisabetta Iossa & David Martimort, 2012. "Risk allocation and the costs and benefits of public--private partnerships," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 43(3), pages 442-474, September.
    6. Martimort, David & Pouyet, Jerome, 2008. "To build or not to build: Normative and positive theories of public-private partnerships," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 26(2), pages 393-411, March.
    7. Marian MOSZORO, 2014. "Efficient Public-Private Capital Structures," Annals of Public and Cooperative Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 85(1), pages 103-126, March.
    8. Habib, Michel & Brealey, Richard & Cooper, Ian, 2018. "Valuation in the Public and Private Sectors: Tax, Risk, Debt Capacity, and the Cost of Capital," CEPR Discussion Papers 13277, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    9. Välilä, Timo, 2020. "An overview of economic theory and evidence of public-private partnerships in the procurement of (transport) infrastructure," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).
    10. Galilea, Patricia & Medda, Francesca, 2010. "Does the political and economic context influence the success of a transport project? An analysis of transport public-private partnerships," Research in Transportation Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(1), pages 102-109.
    11. Antonio Sánchez Soliño, 2019. "Sustainability of Public Services: Is Outsourcing the Answer?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(24), pages 1-12, December.
    12. Hoppe, Eva I. & Kusterer, David J. & Schmitz, Patrick W., 2013. "Public–private partnerships versus traditional procurement: An experimental investigation," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 89(C), pages 145-166.
    13. Chen, Bin R. & Chiu, Y. Stephen, 2010. "Public-private partnerships: Task interdependence and contractibility," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 28(6), pages 591-603, November.
    14. Fay, Marianne & Martimort, David & Straub, Stéphane, 2021. "Funding and financing infrastructure: The joint-use of public and private finance," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 150(C).
    15. Jean-Etienne de Bettignies & Thomas W. Ross, 2010. "The Economics of Public–Private Partnerships: Some Theoretical Contributions," Chapters, in: Graeme A. Hodge & Carsten Greve & Anthony E. Boardman (ed.), International Handbook on Public–Private Partnerships, chapter 7, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    16. Mansaray, Alhassan & Coleman, Simeon & Ataullah, Ali & Sirichand, Kavita, 2021. "Residual government ownership in public-private partnership projects," Journal of Government and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 4(C).
    17. Daniel Albalate & Germà Bel & Richard R. Geddes, 2015. "“Strong versus Weak Vertical Integration: Contractual Choice and PPPs in the United States”," IREA Working Papers 201518, University of Barcelona, Research Institute of Applied Economics, revised Sep 2015.
    18. Yuri Biondi, 2009. "Capital budgeting under relational contracting: optimal ranking and duration criteria for schemes of concession, project-financing and public-private partnership," Post-Print hal-00404305, HAL.
    19. Iossa, Elisabetta & Martimort, David, 2016. "Corruption in PPPs, incentives and contract incompleteness," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 85-100.
    20. Miranda Sarmento, J. & Renneboog, L.D.R., 2014. "Public-Private Partnerships : Risk Allocation and Value for Money," Other publications TiSEM b9218010-a357-4c0a-805a-7, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    discount rates; public-private partnerships;

    JEL classification:

    • H43 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - Project Evaluation; Social Discount Rate

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bri:cmpowp:02/059. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cmbriuk.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.