Commercial investment in public–private partnerships: the impact of government characteristics

ABSTRACT

How to attract commercial investment to provide infrastructure and public service is an important issue for governments around the world. This paper investigated what government characteristics can attract commercial investment. Using China’s PPP cases, this study shows that local government’s fiscal stress, land resources, and wealth are important determinants in attracting commercial investment. The business environment of local government plays a moderating role between government characteristics (i.e., fiscal stress, land resources, and wealth) and commercial investment. By highlighting the determinants of commercial investment, this study offers important implications for the theory and practice of PPP management.

KEYWORDS:

• Public–private partnerships
• private investment
• business environment
• fiscal stress
• land finance

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. https://www.adb.org/sites/default/files/publication/158409/2014-infrascope.pdf.

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China [71774023]; Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities [DUT22RW309]; Major Program of Philosophy and Social Science of Chinese Ministry of Education [21JZD034]