When to Partner for Public Infrastructure?

Jan Whittington

Journal of the American Planning Association, 2012, vol. 78, issue 3, 269-285

Abstract: Problem, research strategy, and findings: Public agencies traditionally request bids and award contracts to private firms after infrastructure designs are complete (bid-build). They also increasingly partner with private firms, often by folding capital improvements into a contract to design and build (design-build). The latter involves much more than the mere transfer of design work to the private sector, such as time to completion; the merits or problems of design-build strategies can, thus, be difficult to isolate. This article presents a method for doing so. Together with the development of a theory of contracting, the comparative analysis of two very similar highway overpass projects, one design-build and the other bid-build, demonstrates how so-called transaction cost economics can clarify the details of partnership cost-effectiveness. Takeaway for practice: Transaction cost analysis disaggregates and evaluates the costs of completed projects, accounting for factors typically external to economic analysis. My approach reveals tradeoffs between variables of interest to planners, such as the pace of delivery, public participation, environmental compliance, and the transfer of risk of cost overrun to the private sector. Research support: This research was made possible by a grant from the University of California Transportation Center, shared with Professor David Dowall.

Date: 2012
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/01944363.2012.715510 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

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:taf:rjpaxx:v:78:y:2012:i:3:p:269-285

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/rjpa20

DOI: 10.1080/01944363.2012.715510

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of the American Planning Association is currently edited by Sandi Rosenbloom

More articles in Journal of the American Planning Association from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().