Political Determinants of Public-Private Partnerships

During the last three decades, Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) have emerged as a new contractual arrangement to provide infrastructure investment and services. Examining the evolution of PPPs contracts in emerging countries, this paper analyses the role played by political institutions and partisanship showing that: (i) PPPs are more used when governmental and legislative transaction costs increase; and (ii) political partisanship does not explain the use and consolidation of PPPs as a contractual arrangement. The paper also confirms the relevance of macroeconomic and institutional quality variability variables found in previous literature and sheds new light regarding the political economy of PPPs, especially on how political governance structures shape incentives for using PPPs as a contractual mechanism.