Infrastructure procurement: learning from private – public partnership experiences ‘down under’

The public – private partnership (PPP) market in Australia is considered to be sophisticated and mature. Yet there have been several major failures that have occurred with economic infrastructure projects. Building on the experiences of Australia, we examine the underlying concepts of PPPs and the pertinent issues that have arisen during the procurement of infrastructure projects. Lessons learnt from implementing PPPs with respect to risk allocation, certainty, incentives, intergenerational equity and fiscal sustainability, and the cost of capital are identified and discussed. We conclude by suggesting that future research should focus on examining how PPP delivery can be improved rather than on determining their usage within the marketplace.