PUBLIC–PRIVATE PARTNERSHIPS IN THE NETHERLANDS: POLICY, PROJECTS AND LESSONS

This article examines the re-emergence of public–private partnerships (PPPs) in the Netherlands since the 1980s, summarising the policy discussions that have taken place, and analysing the projects that have been implemented or planned. Several policy conclusions are drawn from the Dutch experience with PPPs.     

SHIFTING SANDS: NON‐LINEARITY,COMPLEXITY AND RANDOMNESS IN ECONOMICS

Abstract The great crash of 2008 and the associated banking crisis have exposed the increasing irrelevance of much mainstream economics and provoked some economists to re‐examine their discipline. Linear or linearized models with well‐behaved additive stochastic disturbances, based on ‘microeconomic foundations’ are no longer anywhere near adequate. Non‐linearity, complexity and randomness cannot be avoided, and the ideas of the British Emergentists have recently been given a new lease of life. Basing economics on algorithmic foundations provides a means of restoring genuine rigour to economics and, it is hoped, allowing the discipline to respond in a rational and humane way the next time a major crisis looms.