Contracts, governance, and country risk in project finance: Theory and evidence

Soku Byoun and Zhaoxia Xu

Journal of Corporate Finance, 2014, vol. 26, issue C, 124-144

Abstract: Project finance links financial structure to the operational characteristics of the project to optimize the allocations of various project risks. We develop a model in which concession grants and offtake agreements benefit both public and private sponsors in the presence of political risk. The public can use these contracts to incentivize the private sponsor to undertake an otherwise unacceptable project while benefiting from delegating the process of financing, building, and operating the project to the private sponsor. For the private sponsor, the government concession grant, while improving financial returns, entails political influence. We develop hypotheses connecting these contract choices to the public–private partnership governance structure of project finance and provide supporting evidence. Our findings suggest that a country's political and financial risks have significant impacts on the contract choice as well as the public–private governance structure in project finance. Projects in greater political risk countries tend to be structured with less government involvement in order to avoid political influence of the local government. Projects with the private finance initiative end up with more government involvement and control in order to protect the public interest.

Keywords: Project finance; Political risk; Government grant; Offtake agreement; Public–private partnership (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F34 G15 G32 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (12)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:corfin:v:26:y:2014:i:c:p:124-144

DOI: 10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2014.03.003

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