This paper critically assesses the implications of contract design and risk transfer on the provision of public services under public-private partnerships (PPPs). Two results stand out. First, the alleged strength of PPPs in delivering infrastructure projects on budget more often than...

Public-private partnerships (PPPs) are long-term partnerships between the public and private sectors that usually involve the private sector undertaking investment projects that traditionally have been executed (or at least financed) and owned by the public sector. This paper considers...

Considering industrial policy from the perspective of other economic policies, this paper seeks to identify the sources and consequences of conflicts between industrial, competition, trade, and fiscal policies. The goals of industrial policy, even when economically justified in isolation, are in...

Highlighting the revival of industrial-policy thinking in an era of globalisation and disenchantment with free trade, this paper reviews alternative and, in part, competing theoretical foundations of industrial policy: neoclassical foundations, structuralist approaches, and pragmatic approaches...

This paper focuses on the systems-of-innovation (SI) approach and its policy implications. It introduces the topic by briefly reviewing the emergence, development, and diffusion of this approach and, then, spells out the constituents, activities, and boundaries of the SI approach. On this basis,...

This paper discusses alternative ways of defining and measuring the marginal economic cost of public funds and reviews empirical cost estimates - including estimates for EU countries. Moreover, it illustrates how the economic cost of public funds should be accounted for in cost-benefit analyses...

A stylized fact of economic development is the structural transformation of countries from traditional, mainly agricultural societies to modern economies dominated by manufacturing and services. In this paper we provide an endogenous growth model to illuminate the role of entrepreneurial...

We develop a theoretical model of foreign aid to analyse a method of disbursement of aid which induces the recipient government to follow a more pro-poor policy than it otherwise would do. In our two-period model, aid is given in the second period and the volume of it depends on the level of...

Countries compete with one another for funds distributed by nongovernment organizations (NGOs). We examine the competition over poverty and governance conducted by a NGO in the allocation of its funds among potential recipient countries. The NGO in its decisionmaking process also takes into...