Determinants of Contract Choices in Public-Private Partnerships

The purpose of this book is to contribute to the understanding of public and private sector collaborative agreements (public-private partnerships) for the provision of public services that previously were responsibility of state and local governments. Although numerous countries around the world have tried different forms of private participation in their infrastructure industries during the past two decades −and there now exists a burgeoning literature on the topic of privatization− there has been little systematic work on the determinants of the mix of public-private participation. Thus, examining the factors determining the adoption of various forms of “hybrid” public-private governance structures constitutes the major conceptual contribution of this book. In this context, the water industry exhibits particular characteristics that makes it a “politically salient” sector, therefore, a suitable field for testing the proposed framework.