Accounting, regulation and profitability: The case of PFI hospital refinancing

Steven Toms, Matthias Beck and Darinka Asenova

CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, 2011, vol. 22, issue 7, 668-681

Abstract: The refinancing of PFI (Private Finance Initiative) projects represents one of the most contentious aspects of Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) in the UK. The negative publicity associated with UK PFI refinancing deals is associated with several factors, including, evidence of massive private sector profit making, the failure of private sector financiers to share refinancing profits and, lastly, private sector frustration of adequate regulatory intervention in this area. Utilising a dynamic model of capital market and state interaction, this paper explains these outcomes as a function of effective private sector lobbying of bureaucratic state agencies to alter the structure of accounting, accountability and regulation with the goal of securing favourable profit and risk outcomes. These dynamics are illustrated with reference to the history of UK PFI refinancing and a case study of one of the projects where these gains reached extreme levels.

Date: 2011
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1045235411000335
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:crpeac:v:22:y:2011:i:7:p:668-681

DOI: 10.1016/j.cpa.2011.01.010

Access Statistics for this article

CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING is currently edited by Marcia Annisette, Christine Cooper and Yves Gendron

More articles in CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().