Risk, Taxpayers, and the Role of Government in Project Finance PDF Download
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Author: Michael W. Klein
Publisher: World Bank Publications
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 20
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Book Description
December 1996 A perennial question has been the relative cost of public and private finance for investment projects in infrastructure. Klein argues that the apparent cheapness of sovereign funds stems from taxpayers' not being remunerated for the contingent liability they effectively assume. So the proper role for government is to reduce the cost of risk-bearing for all projects by providing a stable and efficient policy framework. Klein concludes that government, through the tax system, cannot really do better than private financial markets at funding infrastructure projects. All the financial advantages of sovereign finance are due purely to coercive powers and are of no social value. Under government finance the taxpayers would bear a contingent liability that, if properly remunerated, would wipe out any cost advantage of sovereign borrowing. Governments should then refrain from investing in projects or firms, whether with equity or with debt. They should not cover commercial risks. In particular, one cannot argue that there is a tradeoff between the low cost of government finance and private efficiency. Private markets will do the best they can to tap low-cost funds while maintaining project discipline. They solve whatever tradeoff there is. The government cannot do better by raising funds. As a corollary, discount rates for private and public sector projects would not be expected to differ (contrary to standard practice). Arguing that the government cannot be expected to improve on the outcome of free financial markets is not to argue that all is the best in the best of all possible worlds and that there is no role for government. Private markets may not always find the best solutions. Market participants constantly search for better ways of trading risks. On average we could not expect governments to do better. More important, governments can significantly reduce the cost of risk-bearing by following prudent macroeconomic policies, supporting secure property rights, and deregulating and liberalizing financial markets so that private players can take the best advantage of low-cost funding opportunities. But it is inefficient to offset the risks created through bad policy by taxpayer-supported funding (which would amount to stealing from investors and compensating them by taking from taxpayers). Multilateral finance institutions should apply their financial instruments to support the development of better government policies - for example, by granting guarantees against policy failures where new policy regimes are not yet credible - and not simply invest in projects or guarantee the full credit risk of loans. This paper - a product of the Private Participation in Infrastructure Group, Private Sector Development Department - is part of a larger effort in the department to analyze issues relating to private participation in infrastructure.
Author: Michael W. Klein
Publisher: World Bank Publications
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 20
Get Book Here
Book Description
December 1996 A perennial question has been the relative cost of public and private finance for investment projects in infrastructure. Klein argues that the apparent cheapness of sovereign funds stems from taxpayers' not being remunerated for the contingent liability they effectively assume. So the proper role for government is to reduce the cost of risk-bearing for all projects by providing a stable and efficient policy framework. Klein concludes that government, through the tax system, cannot really do better than private financial markets at funding infrastructure projects. All the financial advantages of sovereign finance are due purely to coercive powers and are of no social value. Under government finance the taxpayers would bear a contingent liability that, if properly remunerated, would wipe out any cost advantage of sovereign borrowing. Governments should then refrain from investing in projects or firms, whether with equity or with debt. They should not cover commercial risks. In particular, one cannot argue that there is a tradeoff between the low cost of government finance and private efficiency. Private markets will do the best they can to tap low-cost funds while maintaining project discipline. They solve whatever tradeoff there is. The government cannot do better by raising funds. As a corollary, discount rates for private and public sector projects would not be expected to differ (contrary to standard practice). Arguing that the government cannot be expected to improve on the outcome of free financial markets is not to argue that all is the best in the best of all possible worlds and that there is no role for government. Private markets may not always find the best solutions. Market participants constantly search for better ways of trading risks. On average we could not expect governments to do better. More important, governments can significantly reduce the cost of risk-bearing by following prudent macroeconomic policies, supporting secure property rights, and deregulating and liberalizing financial markets so that private players can take the best advantage of low-cost funding opportunities. But it is inefficient to offset the risks created through bad policy by taxpayer-supported funding (which would amount to stealing from investors and compensating them by taking from taxpayers). Multilateral finance institutions should apply their financial instruments to support the development of better government policies - for example, by granting guarantees against policy failures where new policy regimes are not yet credible - and not simply invest in projects or guarantee the full credit risk of loans. This paper - a product of the Private Participation in Infrastructure Group, Private Sector Development Department - is part of a larger effort in the department to analyze issues relating to private participation in infrastructure.
Author: Michael U. Klein
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 20
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Book Description
A perennial question has ...
Author: Michael Klein
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 16
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Book Description
Author: Manal Fouad
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
ISBN: 1513576569
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 61
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Book Description
Investment in infrastructure can be a driving force of the economic recovery in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic in the context of shrinking fiscal space. Public-private partnerships (PPP) bring a promise of efficiency when carefully designed and managed, to avoid creating unnecessary fiscal risks. But fiscal illusions prevent an understanding the sources of fiscal risks, which arise in all infrastructure projects, and that in PPPs present specific characteristics that need to be addressed. PPP contracts are also affected by implicit fiscal risks when they are poorly designed, particularly when a government signs a PPP contract for a project with no financial sustainability. This paper reviews the advantages and inconveniences of PPPs, discusses the fiscal illusions affecting them, identifies a diversity of fiscal risks, and presents the essentials of PPP fiscal risk management.
Author: Timothy Irwin
Publisher: World Bank Publications
ISBN: 9780821340301
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 176
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Book Description
Many infrastructure privatizations still leave governments—and thus taxpayers—exposed to significant financial risks. This book examines these risks and considers how governments should respond to investors' requests for guarantees and other forms of government support. The report examines how governments can decide which risks to bear and which to avoid, how they can reduce the risks that private investors face without giving guarantees, and how they can measure, budget, and account for the risks they do take on.
Author: Timothy Irwin
Publisher: World Bank Publications
ISBN: 0821368591
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 230
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Book Description
The book considers when governments should give guarantees to private investors. After describing the history of guarantees, and the challenges the politics and psychology create for good decisions, the book sets out a principles for allocating risk (and therefore guarantees), techniques for valuing guarantees, and rules to encourage good decisions.
Author: Mansoor Dailami
Publisher: World Bank Publications
ISBN:
Category : Capital investments
Languages : en
Pages : 35
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Book Description
January 1998 For citizens to reap the full benefits of private investment in infrastructure, infrastructure prices must be high enough to cover costs, and private investors must assume commercial risk. Good macroeconomic policy matters because it affects the credibility of a price regime and especially the trust in currency convertibility essential for foreign investors. Driven by fiscal austerity and disenchantment with the performance of state-provided infrastructure services, many governments have turned to the private sector to build, operate, finance, or own infrastructure in power, gas, water, transport, and telecommunications sectors. Private capital flows to developing countries are increasing rapidly; 15 percent of infrastructure investment is now funded by private capital in emerging markets. But relative to needs, such private investment is progressing slowly. Governments are reluctant to raise consumer prices to cost-covering levels, while investors, mindful of experience, fear that governments may renege on promises to maintain adequate prices over the long haul. So investors ask for government support in the form of grants, preferential tax treatment, debt or equity contributions, or guarantees. These subsidies differ in how they allocate risk between private investors and government. Efficiency gains are greatest when private parties assume the risks that they can manage better than the public sector. When governments establish good policies-especially cost-covering prices and credible commitments to stick to them-investors are willing to invest without special government support. Privatizing assets without government guarantees or other financial support is possible, even where governments are politically unable to raise prices, because investors can achieve the returns they demand by discounting the value of the assets they are purchasing. But this is not possible for new investments (greenfield projects). If prices have been set too low and the government is not willing to raise them, it must give the investor financial support, such as guarantees and other forms of subsidy, to facilitate worthwhile projects that would not otherwise proceed. But guarantees shift costs from consumers to taxpayers, who subsidize users of infrastructure services. Much of that subsidy is hidden, since the government does not record the guarantee in its fiscal accounts. And taxpayers provide unremunerated credit insurance, as the government borrows based on its ability to tax citizens if the project fails, not on the strength of the project itself. This paper-a joint product of the Regulatory Reform and Private Enterprise Division, Economic Development Institute, and the Private Participation in Infrastructure Group-was presented at the conference Managing Government Exposure to Private Infrastructure Projects: Averting a New-Style Debt Crisis, held in Cartagena, Colombia, May 29030, 1997. Mansoor Dailami may be contacted at
[email protected].
Author: Jeffrey Delmon
Publisher:
ISBN: 9789041123657
Category : Construction industry
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
Project and other structured finance models have become a method of choice for financing infrastructure projects in many different sectors across the globe. They allow greater flexibility for governments and project sponsors wishing to develop infrastructure without the concomitant burden on their balance sheets and their ability to fund other needs and priorities. However, the fall of Enron, WorldCom and so many other organisations who pushed the structured finance model one step too far has raised alarm bells. Has project and structured finance seen the end of its useful life? Are the risks surrounding such projects so extreme as to bring into question their usefulness? The viability of structured infrastructure projects relies on a comprehensive, yet sensible assessment of risk and allocation of that risk in an efficient manner. Yet our understanding of efficient risk allocation often runs contrary to the actual risk allocation models that we apply to such projects. Risk analysis for complex projects requires a level of sophistication and objectivity of which few individuals are capable. Jeff Delmon's book addresses the many issues around risk and structured infrastructure projects. It is not a dry legal treatise, but an eminently readable and practical explanation of efficient risk allocation and the contractual framework which forms the bedrock of BOT and other project finance transactions. Based on Jeff's practical experience in the sector, this book provides practical guidance and insight into many of the pitfalls often encountered in such projects. This book is ideal for those relatively new to the issues surrounding project finance and risk as well as those with significant experience as an aide-memoire and a challenge to the approaches to risk allocation that are so often applied to such transactions.
Author: Darrin Grimsey
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
ISBN: 1845423437
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 284
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Book Description
This path-breaking book considers the recent trend for governments to look increasingly to private sector finance, provided by private enterprises constructing and managing public infrastructure facilities in partnership with government bodies. 'The boundaries between the public and private sector are the most important political issue of our time.'
Author: Antonio Estache
Publisher: World Bank Publications
ISBN:
Category : Bank Debt
Languages : en
Pages : 38
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Book Description
Many transport projects undertaken during the boom period of the 1990s came to a crashing halt in 1997, and conditions in emerging markets worsened in 1998 and 1999. Many projects failed, victim of everything from overoptimistic forecasts to excessive debt to an inability to refinance bridge loans. As available financing dried up, many projects went bankrupt, had to be renegotiated, or were taken over by the government. What have we learned from all this?
