Public-private partnerships (PPPs) can sometimes be perceived as a means for delivering infrastructure for free. A more nuanced but still inexact view is that they are a mechanism to overcome fiscal constraints. Some argue, perhaps rightly, that often governments enter PPP contracts without...

A corollary of the pandemic crisis and the unprecedented contraction of economic activity in Europe is the inevitable increase in public debt, and the need for active support of the European Central Bank (ECB), centred on the emergency purchase programme of government bonds. There is broad...