Public—Private Partnerships in Ireland: Policy and Practice

Ireland's National Development Plan 2000–2006 includes a significant programme of public—private partnerships (PPPs). The Irish Government's policy on PPPs has been shaped to ensure that capital investments under PPP are not included when calculating key fiscal aggregates. This article traces the origins of Ireland's PPP programme and outlines the extent of PPP activity to date. It details how the PPP programme has failed to make an impact in terms of addressing Ireland's infrastructure deficit and examines three particular cases where the PPP model has been applied.     

Transparency trade-offs in the operation of national Public Private Partnership units: The case of Ireland’s National Development Finance Agency

Since 2002, the Irish National Development Finance Agency [NDFA] has played a leading role in the procurement of Public Private Partnership [PPP] projects in Ireland (UNECE, 2008). It has procured 9 PPP projects bundles, which are currently listed on its website, between 2002 and 2022 ¹ in addition to Primary Care, Justice, OPW and Education bundles not currently listed on its website. Ireland follows a global pattern where national or provincial PPP units, frequently organised as arm’s-length bodies, play a central role in managing the partnership-based procurement of infrastructure projects (Burger, 2009). This paper examines how the NDFA, acting as Ireland’s PPP unit, has affected the transparency and accountability of Irish PPP procurement. Our analysis indicates that the expanding role played by the NDFA has been depoliticisation and agencification. Our analysis deviates from some previous critical studies of PPP agency governance (Sześciło, 2020) in that we argue that agencification can adversely affect some aspects of PPP transparency while strengthening others, such as selection process transparency. Nonetheless, we suggest the approach to PPP procurement could harm the long-term sustainability of Irish PPP. Using the example of Ireland, our paper contributes to an understanding of the impact of such institutional arrangements on transparency and accountability of PPP procurement.     

Terrorism and Critical Infrastructures: Implications for Public–Private Crisis Management

The spate of terrorist attacks in New York, London and Madrid has raised some significant issues for the public management of critical infrastructures. In many countries, privatizations in the 1980s and 1990s have transferred key elements of the critical infrastructure to private companies. Because these infrastructures are of major significance to our societies and economies, they must be protected against prolonged periods of breakdown. The ‘new’ terrorism has the potential to do just that. The management of this new threat is a complex task, which invariably will be undertaken by both public and private actors. They must deal with the core challenges of the prevention of attacks, effective communication of information across organizational boundaries and the ‘ownership’ of crisis decision-making. This article considers these issues within the context of the broader research areas of public management and crisis management.     

Strategic Management Thinking and Practice in the Public Sector: A Strategic Planning for All Seasons?

This paper explores how strategic management thinking manifests itself in strategic management practice in the public sector. Mintzberg's framework of ten strategic management schools of thought is chosen for mapping strategic management thinking. The paper analyses a convenience sample of 35 strategic management processes, observation of an agency's strategy reformulation process and interviews of managers in the public sector in Norway for informing the discussion. Strategic planning is heavily criticised in some of the business strategy literature. The analysis indicates that strategic management in the public sector extensively uses strategic planning, bundled with certain other schools of thought, despite tendencies to downplay formal, mechanistic planning in contemporary strategic management theory.     

Public Pensions and U.S. Infrastructure Investment: The Perfect Partnership?

Public pension funds have been passive investors in U.S. infrastructure projects for years, serving primarily as limited partners in designated infrastructure funds. However, the continued maturation of U.S. public‐private partnerships, combined with pension funds' need for yield to match future liabilities, has prompted the funds to take a more active role in infrastructure investment. In recent years, many pension funds have built internal teams to make direct (as opposed to indirect and for the most part passive) investments in infrastructure projects. Governments in particular should pay close attention to the emergence of pension funds as direct infrastructure investors. With OECD pension assets totaling $10.6 trillion at the end of 2010, the world's pension funds offer governments a strong value proposition. Given the fixed nature of their pension liabilities, pension funds emphasize yield and long‐term appreciation, and are likely to accept rate of returns in the neighborhood of CPI + 5%. Infrastructure investments, which generate highly stable cashflow and enjoy high barriers to entry, are ideally suited to meet these criteria. Also of particular significance to governments, pension funds have two bottom lines. First is expected yield and returns; second is their desire to invest in projects that meet a mission of social responsibility. Pension investors prefer, when possible, to invest in projects that promote government objectives such as reduced congestion and clean air. Taking account of pension funds' double mission can help governments capture opportunities to develop infrastructure through meaningful partnerships with like‐minded investors.     

How Different Is the Efficiency of Public and Private Water Companies in Asia?

Several studies have compared the efficiency of publicly andprivately owned water utilities and reached conflicting conclusionson the impact of ownership on efficiency. This article providesfurther evidence by estimating a stochastic cost frontier fora sample of Asian and Pacific regional water companies. Theresults show that efficiency is not significantly differentin private companies than in public ones.     

Barriers to Interpretation—A Case Study of Philips Electronics NV

Philips Electronics NV, a very large European company, went through considerable upheaval in the period 1980 to 1994. Accounting disclosures did not seem to be very helpful to statement readers who wanted to evaluate Philips' progress and position. The company's financial condition and income results deteriorated significantly during most of the period, and large losses were shown in 1990 and 1992. Prior to the huge loss recorded in 1990, there were few indications in the annual reports that troubles were mounting. In earlier periods a series of accounting changes were made, the effect of which typically was to increase income. The most significant change came in 1992, when Philips abandoned current cost accounting. We investigated financial analysts' reactions to company disclosures and found that they had problems interpreting the effects of Philips' accounting changes. In addition to accounting changes, Philips also used a somewhat arbitrary restructuring charge (or credit) to adjust income amounts. Finally, the absence of full explanations from the directors at some points could have resulted in users of the annual report being misled. Over the period studied, Philips lost a significant portion of its stockholders' equity. The effect of its reporting practices was to obscure the impact of the unfavorable economic events that affected the company. Financial reporting, at least for this company, fell short of providing disclosures that told a clear story of what was taking place. In the periods before large losses were recorded, few hints were provided of impending disasters. Overall, the results of this study are disturbing. Although the study is restricted to one company, the results deserve the thoughtful consideration of both academics and practising accountants.     

Individual and Institutional Contributors to the Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics: 1988–1999

This article identifies the individuals and institutions contributing the research published in the Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics during its first 12 years. Consistent with the trend in many fields, coauthorship has increased during the period. The top individual contributors vary across six-year periods as well as whether measured by appearances or pages. The concentration of publications by the top individuals has decreased over time. Unlike individuals, the top institutions are not sensitive to whether measured by appearances or pages or to whether measured using contemporaneous or current faculty affiliations. The breadth of the journal appears to be growing; contributions by universities outside the United States and by private firms and organizations have risen during the 12 years.     

Discussion of “The Effects of Taxes,Agency Costs and Information Asymmetry on Earnings Management: A Comparison of Public and Private Firms”

Review of Accounting Studies -     

The Private Finance Initiative in the National Health Service: An Unhealthy Development in New Public Management?

New Public Management has expanded the role of the private sector in the provision of public services through 'contracting out' the supply of many public service inputs to the private sector. This paper examines the case of the Private Finance Initiative (PFI), which is of increasing importance in extending these inputs to include those of major capital assets, such as hospital buildings. Concerns arise as to whether this process does genuinely increase efficiency and accountability, and over the role of accounting in meeting the new demands being placed upon it, in the context of one of the most sensitive public services, that of health care.     

Too Good to be True? An Analysis of the Options Market's Reactions to Earnings Releases

Using option implied risk neutral return distributions before and after earnings announcements, we study the option market's reaction to extreme events over earnings announcements. While earnings announcements generally reduce short‐term uncertainty about the stock price, very good news does not reduce uncertainty and slightly bad news actually increases uncertainty. We also find that left tail probabilities decrease over earnings releases while right tail probabilities increase. We interpret these findings as evidence of maintained investor expectations that very good news is generally not released during earnings announcements, combined with skepticism in the form of lingering uncertainty at the release of such very good news.     

Business as Usual? An Institutional View of the Relationship Between Management Control Systems and Strategy

The relationship between management control systems (MCS) and strategy has received considerable attention in the management control literature. Contingency‐based approaches, however, have traditionally dominated this research, with limited attention devoted specifically to how MCS and strategy may combine in organisations operating within highly institutionalised environments. Adopting an institutional perspective, the current study is based on interviews with CEOs and senior executives in 32 Australian Not‐for‐Profit organisations. Our findings indicate a tendency for these organisations to decouple informal control from MCS, producing a ‘business as usual’ mentality via the pervasive informal approach to control, supplanting contingency‐based predictions relating to MCS‐strategy relations.     

The Joy of Giving or Assisted Living? Using Strategic Surveys to Separate Public Care Aversion from Bequest Motives

The “annuity puzzle,” conveying the apparently low interest of retirees in longevity insurance, is central to household finance. Two possible explanations are “public care aversion” (PCA), retiree aversion to simultaneously running out of wealth and being in need of long‐term care, and an intentional bequest motive. To disentangle the relative importance of PCA and bequest motive, we estimate a structural model of the retirement phase using a novel survey instrument that includes hypothetical questions. We identify PCA as very significant and find bequest motives that spread deep into the middle class. Our results highlight potential interest in annuities that make allowance for long‐term care expenses.     

Public Policy and Accounting Research: What Is to Be Done?

Abstract

Singleton-Green [2010. The communication gap: Why doesn't accounting research make a greater contribution to debates on accounting policy? Accounting in Europe, 7(2), 129–145] argues that a communication gap between researchers and those involved in public debates on accounting problems significantly reduces the impact of accounting research. A new ICAEW report, The Effects of Mandatory IFRS Adoption in the EU: a Review of Empirical Research, tries to bridge the communication gap on the subject that it covers. The report found not only a significant amount of relevant research, but also that its usefulness was limited in various ways. The paper makes a number of recommendations to researchers: they should point out any biases in the data they use, address some issues through field work, not assume that surrounding institutions are unchanged, be careful to understand the specific features of the countries they cover, investigate differences in previous research, and state the economic significance of their findings. The paper also makes recommendations for non-academic participants in public policy debates, including: they should actively promote relevant research, help researchers get access to information, and help ensure that researchers have the incentives to do what is needed to benefit public policy.     

Analysis of the Leadership and Organizational Culture——The Fall of Arthur Andersen

Arthur Andersen LLP is formerly one of the Big Five accounting firms in the world. However, in 2002, it voluntarily surrendered its licenses to practice as Certified Public Accountants in the United States, and was out of the 89 years career in the audit profession. Meanwhile the global branches of the firm is revoked and acquisition. This thesis analyses this event from a leadership and organizational culture perspective. It will elaborate from three aspects, including the organizational culture, internal integration, external environment and changing.     

Financial Institutions and Non‐Governmental Organizations: An Advocacy Partnership for Sustainable Capital Markets?

In this article, the Chief Responsibility Officer for Aviva Investors examines the potential for financial institutions (FIs) to work in partnership with non‐governmental organizations (NGOs) in advocating changes to public policy that promote sustainable capital markets. Many NGOs have argued that the current form of global economic growth is unsustainable—and they routinely engage in public policy advocacy. However, such advocacy has generally proved ineffective, in large part because most NGOs have a very limited understanding of how capital markets function. Investors, for their part, are increasingly recognizing that key aspects of the global economy are on an unsustainable footing. And some are concerned about the negative implications for the long‐term value of their assets. But with a few notable exceptions, they have not made systematic efforts to work with governments to correct the market failures. NGO‐FI advocacy partnerships could identify specific cases of systemic or sectoral market failures, and recommend long‐term changes to the sectoral operating environment that would affect the cash flows and values of companies operating within that sector in ways designed to “internalize” the effects of negative social and environmental externalities. To foster the development of such partnerships, there is a need for academia to develop learning forums that stimulate the exchange of ideas between the executives within NGOs and FIs in an environment of mutual trust and respect.     

Has the Reform of Nontradable Shares Raised Prices?: An Event-Study Analysis

This study examines the abnormal stock returns of pilot companies to determine if investors believed that reform of nontradable shares, which began on April 29, 2005, would lead to higher stock prices. Employing event-study analysis, we find that the pilot companies have positive significant abnormal returns. The average abnormal return of the first batch is higher than that of the second batch, the average abnormal return on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange is higher than that of the Shanghai Stock Exchange, the average abnormal return on the Small and medium Enterprise board is higher than that of the main board, and companies with high-compensation packages have higher average abnormal returns than do companies with low-compensation packages. Our results suggest that investors generally viewed nontradable share reform as positive news.     

New development: Accountability in public partnerships—The case of Local Strategic Partnerships

Present arrangements for the accountability of Local Strategic Partnerships (LSPs) and Local Area Agreements (LAAs) are confused. While only local authorities have a direct accountability to the electorate for them, yet they lack powers over their public partners to make that accountability genuine. These partners should be obliged to follow the lead of the local authority.