Skip to main content
European Commission logo
English English
CORDIS - EU research results
CORDIS
CORDIS Web 30th anniversary CORDIS Web 30th anniversary
Content archived on 2024-05-29

Property rights theory and reform of public infrastructure (electricity, water)in developing countries private-public partnerships and creation of property rights

Objective

In the continuity of our earlier works, we propose to deepen the analysis of the theoretical link between property rights (especially control rights) and the informational structure in public infrastructure organizations in developing countries. The analysis will revolve around the concepts of « good of unknown value" (Victor Goldberg) and of "creation (rather than allocation) of property rights". This allows specifying the current analysis (mostly based on incentives) of public-private partnerships (PPP). For this, we study infrastructure organisations (utilities of electricity, as well as water and sanitation) of developing countries. Those organisations are generally deficient in terms of definition of property rights, linked with an informational deficiency.

We focus on two practical issues, mutually linked: -Which type of private information (and securing of the latter) does the various modes of PPP generate? For which effect on the value creation/valuation of infrastructure organisations/utilities? In an analytical framework built around the dialectics creation of information/creation of rights, how do PPPs improve the central issue pertaining to productive efficiency: the coordination between infrastructure development and management? A direct practical application will focus on water distribution in metropolitan areas of India. Improved coordination necessitates re-defining the control rights of the various organisations in charge, but also clarifying some common property rights, which is a rarely underlined dimension of this problem for developing countries: in India, even in Delhi or Calcutta, share of locally extracted underground water is superior to 20%; this figure peaks at 60% for Madras. Theoretical analysis will link up modelling with real options and valuation after implementation of property right sand information systems to secure these rights.

Call for proposal

FP6-2002-MOBILITY-5
See other projects for this call

Coordinator

LONDON SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS AND POLITICAL SCIENCE
EU contribution
No data
Total cost
No data