Public-Private Partnerships—A Public Economics Perspective

Public-private partnerships (PPPs) are spreading all over the world. It may be quite plausible that they were initially started mainly as an attempt to evade expenditure controls and hide public budget deficits. But if they are properly designed and transparently reported, PPPs can play a useful role in enhancing the efficiency of the provision of services that were supplied before solely by the public sector. This article provides a public economics perspective on PPPs. (JEL codes: H54, L33)