When are public-private partnerships (PPPs) better than conventional provision and regulated privatization? And should PPP contracts be structured and governed when this is the case?. We show that the defining features of a PPP are (i) bundling of construction and operation, (ii) private but...

Government guarantees for private infrastructure projects reduce the incentives of firms to perform efficiently, weaken the incentives to screen projects for white elephants, and shift government obligations to future periods. Thus the uses of guarantees needs to be limited, and they need to be...

Latin American governments progressively substituted build–operate–and–transfer (BOT) contracts for government–provided highways during the nineties. Because under BOT a private franchise holder finances and operates the road in exchange for tolls, it is often claimed that BOT represents...

It has become increasingly common to allocate highway franchises to the bidder that offers to charge the lowest toll. Often, building a highway increases the value of land held by a small group of developers, an effect that is more pronounced with lower tolls. We study the welfare implications...

We build a conceptual framework to analyze the virtues and limitations of alternative mechanisms that can be used to auction a highway. We argue that current mechanisms, which fix the term of the franchise, create unnecesary risk and facilitate post-contract opportunism by the regulator and the...

Major increases in congestion over the last two decades, combined with troubled government finances, have made private toll-roads increasingly attractive in the United States. Road privatization consists in having a private firm build, operate and maintain the road for many decades. The main...

In many circumstances, a principal, who wants prices to be as low as possible, must contract with agents who would like to charge the monopoly price. This paper compares a Demsetz auction, which awards an exclusive contract to the agent bidding the lowest price (competition for the field) with...

This paper reviews the Latin American experience with highway privatization during the last decade. Based on evidence from Argentina, Colombia and Chile, we find that private financing of new highways freed up fewer public resources than expected because public funds were often diverted to bail...

During most of the twentieth century, highways, tunnels and bridges were viewed as public goods that had to be provided by the government. By the end of the century, however, chronic budgetary problems had led governments to allow participation of private firms in financing, building,and...

A growing number of roads are currently financed by the private sector via Build-Operate-and-Transfer (BOT) schemes. When the franchised road has no close substitute, the government must regulate tolls. Yet when there are many ways of getting from one point to another, regulation may be avoided...