Public-Private Partnerships as Collaborative Projects: Testing the Theory on Cases from EU and Russia

Abstract

Public-private partnerships (PPP) allow involvement of private parties in the provision of public goods. How does this differ from traditional public procurement? We view PPPs as collaborative projects with information frictions. Typical public procurement contracts tackle the problems of asymmetric information. However, not all projects are contractible; some are not profitable enough to ensure participation of the private partner. This is due, in part, to costly information verification, and in part to the profitability requirements of the private party. We demonstrate what specific features of a partnership can improve feasibility of projects, and thus both provide a justification of PPP as a form of public good provision, and demonstrate how and whether it differs from procurement. We then analyse real life examples of PPP projects from the perspective of optimal choice of contracts, involvement of both partners, and the features that make these PPP arrangements superior to public procurement.