Crisis Driven Literature in PPPs: A Network Analysis

Abstract

COVID-19 crisis has simultaneously triggered a global economic crisis whose consequences will lead to a dichotomy where several governments' debt has grown to unprecedented levels and simultaneously is required to promote new infrastructure supply. This global economic crisis scenario endangers current Public-Private Partnership (PPP) programs given their dependence on payment from the user and/or government subsidies in long-term lifecycles. This study aims for unravelling the PPP research agenda derived from the last global economic crisis in 2008 and the current one for understanding the trends developed as a tool for building a post-pandemic PPP research agenda. For understanding the last global financial crisis PPP literature review and its time and geographic evolution since 2008, this study developed a literature review employing Network Analysis. Therefore, crisis- and PPP-related keywords were combined for establishing the search in the Web of Science database. After removing duplicate papers, 67 peer-reviewed articles were identified for recognizing underpinning topics, potential gaps, and time evolution. The network analysis revealed seven clusters driven by payment sources (i.e., public financial aspects, user payments, and demand), contract mechanisms (i.e., contractual governance, and risk valuation), and project performance (i.e., project performance under crisis and project efficiency). This paper contributes to the PPP body of knowledge by unraveling the post-global economic crisis agenda and its gaps in proposing a new research agenda for overcoming the consequences of the global economic crisis derived from the COVD-19 pandemic.