Would the world be a more credible place if the public-private partnerships contracts were quoted in financial markets ?

Abstract

This dissertation studies the possibility of overcoming the lack of transparency and economic misuses of Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) through financing the contracts directly with publicly traded instruments in the financial markets. Publicly traded instruments require particular conditions that would increase the transparency and credibility of the use of PPPs, representing a possible and real sustainable choice for public investment in infrastructure construction or any type of facilities for public interest purposes. This thesis documents, argues and sustains this novel approach, by reviewing the literature and looking at existing instruments that can possibly be used for this purpose. This paper also gathers an extensive sample of Portuguese and further European PPP projects, measuring the different levels of private engagement and possible listing requirements. It is concluded that financing PPPs with debt instruments, like project bonds, is a plausible and real way to combine PPPs with quoted financial securities. According to the data, it is also verifiable that in countries with more stable conditions in public finances, the private side on the PPP contract tends to be more transparent than in the countries struggling with their public finances.

Date of Award	2015
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Ricardo Reis (Supervisor)