Pricing Final Indemnification Payments to Private Sponsors in Project-Financed Public-Private Partnerships: An Application of Real Options Valuation

The extraordinary global growth in the private funding of public infrastructure projects in the form of public‐private partnerships (or PPPs) is expected to have major social and economic benefits—benefits that result in large part from improving the allocation of project risks between the public and private sectors. But with the financial crisis and severe tightening of credit likely to limit the financing and delivery of new projects, both project participants and their financiers need to manage the technical, economic, legal, and political complexities of infrastructure projects more carefully, especially in less traditional infrastructure deals that involve complex operations, new assets, or emerging markets. This paper proposes and illustrates the application of the real options valuation approach to a critical feature of most PPPs: establishing the final “indemnification” amount to be paid by a public administration to private partners in the project financing of those PPPs that face substantial market risks. In demonstrating this approach, the authors use the case of the Pedemontana Lombarda toll road, a major transportation infrastructure project in Northern Italy for which financial plans have been filed and whose start is now pending. The main function of real options in this case is to capture the effects on value of the major market risk in such projects—namely, the uncertainty about volume of traffic on the new road. The authors interpret the final indemnification price as the value of a real put option sold by the awarding authority to private investors (in the case of a project that would otherwise be unprofitable and have a negative NPV). The put option takes the form of a clause in the concession contract that gives investors the right, under certain circumstances, to sell the toll road back to the government for a fixed sum (in this case, €2.9 billion). According to the authors, this valuation approach is likely to be helpful in any kind of infrastructure project that faces risk stemming from the unpredictability of market demand and future revenue streams.     

绿色PPP项目组合的最优契约:经济与环境效应的福利视角

绿色PPP搭配高收益项目的激励方式是吸引社会资本参与环境治理的举措之一。本文基于经济与环境的双重福利效应,从理论上研究了该激励方式的契约设计问题,阐释了博弈均衡的存在性以及最优特许期的形成逻辑和关键决定因素。研究表明:第一,绿色PPP搭配高收益项目能够提高企业利润,激发社会资本参与环境治理来应对环境风险。第二,政企双方博弈决策模式决定了契约能否订立。如果独立决策,使企业利润最大的特许期也能够带来最高的环境效益,但此时博弈结果展现为“刀刃上的均衡”,契约难以建立;如果合作博弈,双方最优特许期选择达成一致,契约得以订立,政府向企业让渡经济利润而收获环境效益,最终实现经济与环境福利的双赢。第三,绿色PPP搭配高收益项目优于传统政府补贴的激励方式,在收获同等环境效益的基础上,能够带动社会总福利的提升。研究结论为绿色PPP搭配高收益项目激励方式的推广实施、从而助力实现碳达峰和碳中和战略目标提供了契约设计理论依据和相关框架。     

河北省财政运行风险及防范对策研究

近年来,面对经济社会各领域公共风险,河北财政通过减收、增支、加债等方式,有效防控了公共风险的暴发,全省财政经济运行整体平稳,但也导致财政自身风险的累积,体现在财政收入持续增长后劲不足、财政支出保障难度逐步增加、地方政府债务风险存有隐患、其他领域风险趋向财政转移等.防控地方财政经济运行风险,需要充分发挥财政职能,加强财源建设,推动财政收入持续增长;调整支出方向,确保地方财政平稳运行;完善管理机制,防范地方政府债务风险;深化体制改革,消除财政风险转移隐患.     

Institutions,ownership, and finance: the determinants of profit reinvestment among Chinese firms

Johnson et al. (2002. American Economic Review 92 (5), 1335–1356) examine the relative importance of property rights and external finance in several Eastern European countries. They find property rights to be overwhelmingly important, while external finance explains little of firm reinvestment. McMillan and Woodruff (2002. Journal of Economic Perspectives 16 (3), 153–170) further conjecture that as transition moves along, market-supporting (financial) institutions should become more important. This paper reexamines those issues in the context of China in 2002, when the transition had moved far. We also find that secure property rights are a significant predictor of firm reinvestment. However, in line with McMillan and Woodruff, we find that access to external finance in the form of bank loans is also associated with more reinvestment. Following Acemoglu and Johnson (2003. Unbundling institutions. Unpublished working paper 9934, National Bureau of Economic Research, Cambridge, MA), we separate our proxies for the security of property rights into two groups: those measuring the risk of expropriation by the government and those measuring the ease and reliability of contract enforcement. Whereas those authors’ cross-country results suggest that risk of expropriation is the more severe impediment to economic development, ours indicate that both expropriation risk and contract enforcement play a role in Chinese firms’ reinvestment decisions. We also find that another aspect of property rights, the extent of private ownership, is associated with greater reinvestment. At China's current stage of development, expropriation risk, contract enforcement, access to finance, and ownership structure all appear to matter for reinvestment decisions. Some evidence also exists that access to finance and government expropriation affect small firms more than large ones.     

地方财政土地出让金偏好的风险及规避

在现行财政体制和土地制度等多重因素的共同作用下,地方财政土地出让金偏好得以形成,但这种财政收入方式带来了巨大的财政风险和社会风险,破坏了土地资源的可持续利用,建议从完善财政体制和土地出让制度两个方向来逐步降低地方财政土地出让金偏好,规避风险。     

Risk Management in Public–Private Partnerships

This study investigates the risk management in long‐term concession contracts known as public–private partnerships (PPPs). The M4 is the first Australian PPP road concession to reach the end of its concession cycle. It provides a unique and timely opportunity to examine the risk management process over its contract term and the efficacy of PPP contractual structures in managing uncertainties. Our specific research interests focus on two questions. First, what risk management approach was implemented? Second, has the risk‐allocation strategy defined in the contract facilitated or hindered the risk management process? The findings of the study suggest that under the incomplete contract approach, the risk management practices rooted in a strong contractual framework, allied with good relationship skills, has contributed to a positive outcome for the M4 PPP. The study provides generalisable insights into risk management in inter‐organisational long‐term contracts.     

新公共治理、政府绩效评价与我国政府财务报告的改进

新公共治理是近年来全球范围内政府治理模式变革的最新发展趋势,体现了契约政府的本质。政府绩效评价作为新公共治理得以实施的先进管理机制和战略工具,需要政府财务报告作为信息平台和制度基础,而现行的政府财务报告无力承担这一重任,所以探索绩效评价取向的政府财务报告改进问题具有迫切的现实意义。本文提出了绩效评价取向的政府财务报告目标、报告主体和报表编制基础的改进思路,在借鉴西方国家政府财务报告建设经验的基础上设计了包括绩效报告在内的多层次、复合型的政府财务报告体系。     

PETROZUATA: A CASE STUDY OF THE EFFECTIVE USE OF PROJECT FINANCE

Companies are increasingly using project finance to fund large-scale capital expenditures. In fact, private companies invested $96 billion in project finance deals in 1998, down from $119 billion in 1997 largely due to the Asian crisis, but up more than threefold since 1994. The decision to use project finance involves an explicit choice of organizational form as well as financial structure. With project finance, sponsoring firms create legally distinct entities to develop, manage, and finance the project. These entities borrow on a limited or non-recourse basis, which means that loan repayment depends on the project's cash flows rather than on the assets or general credit of the sponsoring organizations. Despite the non-recourse nature of project borrowing, projects are highly leveraged entities, with debt to total capitalization ratios averaging 60–70%. Petrozuata, a $2.4 billion oil field development project in Venezuela, is a recent example of the effective use of project finance for several reasons. First, the analysis shows a typical setting where project finance is likely to create value, that of a large-scale investment in Greenfield assets (in this case, wells, pipelines, and upgrader) that can function as a stand-alone economic entity and support a high leverage ratio. Given the nature of this investment, one can think of project finance as venture capital for fixed assets, except that the investments are 100 to 1000 times larger and financed primarily with debt rather than equity. Besides highlighting the types of assets appropriate for project finance, this article illustrates the sizeable transactions costs associated with structuring a deal as well as the full range of benefits accruing to project sponsors. The structure allows sponsors to capture tax benefits not otherwise available, reduces information costs for creditors and other investors, and lowers the overall cost of financial distress. The combination of high leverage, concentrated equity ownership, and direct control in project finance also addresses a wide range of incentive problems that destroy value in diversified companies. Analysis of the explicit contractual terms of the deal reveals a careful allocation of project risks in an attempt to elicit optimal behavior by each of the participants. As illustrated in the Petrozuata case, limiting completion and operating risks are important undertakings. But project finance is most valuable as an instrument for managing sovereign risks. Indeed, the ability of project finance to limit sovereign risk is the one feature that cannot be replicated under conventional corporate financing schemes.     

Risk assessment for public–private partnership projects: using a fuzzy analytic hierarchical process method and expert opinion in China

Public–private partnerships (PPP) have been widely used in China to procure public facilities and services. Complicated problems in PPP projects in China arise because of a variety of risk factors. A proper risk assessment model is needed to identify risks and provide risk response strategies for future Chinese PPP projects. The fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (F-AHP) method provides the ability to solve complex risk assessment of PPP projects. Current risk assessment models are limited to PPP projects in specific countries and do not consider unique risks in China, especially political, economic, social, and legal risks. This paper designed a risk evaluation index system for PPP projects based on the Delphi expert investigation method, and then established an optimized risk evaluation model for PPP projects in China using the F-AHP method. The risks identified are confirmed by interviewing experts from Chinese local government departments, private enterprise, third-party intermediary consulting and regulatory agencies, and academic organizations. The results show that the risks that ranked among the top ten are closely related to China’s political and economic policies and relationships among stakeholders. It can be concluded that government authorities play a critical role in providing a favorable political, social, and economic environment and an effective institutional framework for PPP projects. Furthermore, it is also important to deal with relationships among stakeholders based on the public–private ‘win–win’ principle. This study provides risk response strategies, addressing key issues from eight aspects: an impeccable legal and regulatory framework; a central coordinating and regulating PPP authority; supportive governmental authorities; institutional capacity-building; favorable economic conditions and viability; community, partner, and moral accountability; clear division of responsibilities through contracts; and effective advisory management. These effective measures may be useful in reducing the adverse effects of risk for PPP projects in China.     

How Banks Price Loans to Public‐Private Partnerships: Evidence from the European Markets

This article presents the findings of a recent analysis of the drivers of credit spreads in project finance loans to public‐private partnerships, or PPPs, an increasingly popular form of procurement worldwide. PPPs are project finance transactions in which project output is a function of government policy in fields such as health, transport, and education. Because of the controversy that now surrounds the use of private finance in PPPs, understanding the determinants of the cost of debt in such highly leveraged projects is of interest to policy makers as well as originators and participants in the transactions. Using a large sample of credit spreads on debt extended to PPP projects in Europe over the past 15 years, the authors' study reports that market risk is the only significant driver of PPP debt credit spreads in a large portfolio of PPP debt; at the same time, technical risks appear to be diversified “away” by the structuring of the projects. Most important, and contrary to standard debt pricing models, factors like loan size, maturity, and leverage do not show up as significant determinants of the cost of debt in PPPs, reflecting a high degree of confidence by lenders that loans will be repaid or recovered. These results support the view that the use of project finance in PPPs is premised on effective risk management as well as confidence in the private sector's ability to manage public projects.     

Political risk,project finance,and the participation of development banks in syndicated lending

How should loan contracts for financing projects in countries with high political risk be designed? We argue that non-recourse project finance loans and the participation of development banks in the loan syndicate help mitigate political risk. We test these arguments by conducting a study with a sample of 4978 loans made to borrowers in 64 countries. Our results show that if political risk is higher, then project finance loans are more likely to be used, and development banks are more likely to participate in the syndicate. We also show that the terms of the loan contract depend not only on the political risk but also on the legal and institutional environment as well.     

地方政府财政风险:表现形式、成因与防范

财政是政府实现其职能的重要手段和经济基础.目前我国财政状况相当严峻,财政风险已逐渐凸现.与中央政府相比,我国地方政府运行困难更大,而与之相伴的财政风险的危害也更大,并且具有向上级传导风险的特性,从而有可能给国家公共财政体系带来各类风险.本文试图从我国地方财政风险的表现形式入手,探索其形成的深层原因,并提出了防范地方财政风险的制度、政策建议.     

Modelling Risk Perceptions of Stakeholders in Public–Private Partnership Toll Road Contracts

This paper investigates the risk perceptions of key stakeholder groups typically involved in public–private partnership (PPP) toll roads. Risk perceptions have an important impact on these PPP schemes for investing in public infrastructure. However, the nature and extent of risk associated with the specification of a PPP contract that commits contracting parties to deliver on their obligations remain unclear. In the context of major transport infrastructure, such as a new toll road, the often‐cited key risk to investors is the traffic (and hence demand) risk. There are, however, other risks, including political risk and media risk, the latter often causing untold harm resulting in modifications to the planned infrastructure. This paper develops a method to capture evidence on how public sector and private sector partners involved in previous PPPs perceive the levels of risk associated with each risk attribute, as a way of identifying the ex ante risk setting brought to negotiations in PPP toll road investments. Using a sample of 101 experts with contract experience in 32 countries, we develop a stated choice experiment and estimate a discrete choice model to quantify a risk profile index (RPI) to capture the perceived (relative) influence of each dimension of risk, and then identify sources of systematic differences in the RPI as a way of understanding the influence of personal traits and contextual and contractual factors.     

以公共风险的结构和强度重塑财政政策体系

随着我国社会、经济发展形态和发展目标的变化,财政政策体系目标和运行逻辑也需要超越建立在确定性思维基础上的凯恩斯主义分析框架,财政政策供给要根据风险权衡原理,视公共风险的结构和强度进行相机调整.在当前复杂的国内外发展环境下,财政须充分发挥作为国家治理的基础与重要支柱的作用,以应对各种不确定性作为财政政策体系运行的目标,与金融环境协调配合,在保证财政自身风险可控前提下,通过灵活多样的政策工具为经济社会注入确定性,降低风险、引导预期,使经济社会系统整体的公共风险最小化.     

The meta‐governance of risk and new technologies: GM crops and mobile telephones

The stylistic shift from government to governance in the regulation of risks associated with new technologies is often portrayed as an attempt to reach a deeper consensus over public controversies and to avoid future risk management failures. Stakeholder involvement in decision‐making through more inclusive and learning styles is seen as increasingly necessary in order to correct the steering deficit of the state, to rebuild trust in state institutions, and to obviate problems caused by uncertainty and different value perspectives in risk assessments. In this paper we scrutinise this model of risk and governance in the light of recent developments in the UK, focusing in particular on the regulation of genetically modified crops and mobile telecommunications technology. We conclude that the shift to governance is best understood in terms of the accommodative response of the state to a number of new challenges: primarily posed by the changing role of the private sector; by pressures on government to engender public trust in the face of shifting social values; and by the related difficulty in taking decisions with confidence and legitimacy. There is a perceived need within government for a more deliberative approach to regulation and standard‐setting, achieved by a creative combination of managed scientific order and the establishment of deliberative cooperative institutions. However the creation of deliberative mechanisms and institutions is not an easy passage, especially if it is accelerated by uncontrollable political events. Indeed, we caution against romantic interpretations of governance as indicating a uniform popular trend towards the democratisation of state decision‐making, despite the very real opportunities for reform that it affords. Rather, we suggest that a more plausible account is provided by seeing governance as a form of adaptive management necessitated by a series of interlocking economic and social changes, and responses to successive risk management crises.     

How to Evaluate Risk Management Units in Financial Institutions?

Based on the existing Enterprise Risk Management framework and current government regulations, “banks are required to establish risk management units (RMUs) to review and evaluate their risks, monitor them, and to advise top management.” Currently an integral part of the risk governance and management process, RMUs in financial institutions have become increasingly important since the 2007–2008 financial crisis. This article details the authors' creation of an index to evaluate the performance of risk management units in financial institutions, and then examines some of their findings. The index transforms twelve parameters into a simple and convenient index that isolates the RMU's activities from the rest of the organizational risk management process, its risk preferences and the activities of the rest of the units. The index's parameters are divided into three dimensions of the RMU's performance: professionalism, organizational status and relationship with top management and the board. The authors found a positive relationship between their RMUI and some important risk governance characteristics: CROs who are among the five highest paid executives at the bank, banks with at least one independent director serving on the board's risk committee having banking and finance experience and boards with greater efficacy.     

The global financial crisis—Market misconduct and regulation from a behavioral view

This paper explores the problem of the global financial crisis of 2008–9, using a behavioral perspective to examine in some detail the issue of governance failures. These failures are evident in the inadequate oversight/regulation provided by US financial market regulators, as well as the inability of financial market participants to adequately judge and assign risk measures to key financial instruments. In total, five elements of behavioral finance are shown to characterize the crisis. The paper shows how specific adjustments in government policy (dealing with market structural imperfections) and company governance (dealing mainly with risk management) can respond to the key elements of the crisis. It also points out that future financial crises cannot be avoided, so that mitigation is the only remedy to deal with such phenomena.     

建立和完善农村合作金融治理结构防范化解金融风险

建立和完善农村合作金融治理结构,就是建立决策、执行、监督、激励相结合的内控机制.它主要体现为自我约束的一种自律行为,是为完成既定的工作目标和防范风险,对内部各职能部门及其工作人员从事的业务活动进行风险控制、制度管理和相互制约的方法、措施和程序.对于防范和化解金融风险,保护存款人和其他客户的合法权益,促进农村合作金融健康发展有着重要作用.     

Financial Synergies and the Optimal Scope of the Firm: Implications for Mergers, Spinoffs, and Structured Finance

Multiple activities may be separated financially, allowing each to optimize its financial structure, or combined in a firm with a single optimal financial structure. We consider activities with nonsynergistic operational cash flows, and examine the purely financial benefits of separation versus merger. The magnitude of financial synergies depends upon tax rates, default costs, relative size, and the riskiness and correlation of cash flows. Contrary to accepted wisdom, financial synergies from mergers can be negative if firms have quite different risks or default costs. The results provide a rationale for structured finance techniques such as asset securitization and project finance.     

地方政府债务影响金融风险的传导机制--基于房地产市场和商业银行视角的研究

本文基于房地产市场和商业银行双重视角,利用2005-2017年省级面板数据和中介效应模型,实证检验地方政府债务对金融风险的风险传递关系和传导路径。实证结果显示,地方政府债务规模扩张的财政风险转化为房地产市场风险和商业银行风险;同时,土地财政、信贷扩张和影子银行是地方政府债务风险的传导路径。为防范金融风险与化解地方政府债务风险,应降低金融部门与地方政府债务的关联,厘清金融与财政的关系。