Public-private partnerships from budget constraints: Looking for debt hiding?

Résumé : The use of Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) to realize and operate public infrastructures is often associated with fiscal circumventing motivations.Using data at the municipal level, this paper investigates whether budget-constrained public authorities adopt PPPs in order to hide public debts. The results show that financial di culties often lead to a preference for PPPs instead of traditional forms of public procure- ment. However, this behavior is not explained by the possibility of debt hiding. We then discuss alternative explanations for these findings.