Public-private partnerships (PPPs) can appeal to governments because they offer a new way of providing public services that is possibly more efficient than traditional public finance. But they can also appeal to governments because they allow new investments to be undertaken without any...

The paper discusses the management of the New Zealand Crown's exposure to financial risk. It argues that the Crown's aggregate exposure to risk can be effectively managed only centrally, and that, despite the difficulties of measuring risk and specifying an appropriate objective, the government...