Asymmetric yardstick competition: traditional procurement versus public-private partnerships

Abstract

We consider local jurisdictions where rent-seeking administrators undertake identical infrastructure projects, choosing between two contractual arrangements: traditional procurement (TP) and public-private partnership (PPP). A yardstick competition mechanism is triggered through retrospective voters’ electoral decisions. A regime with TP in one jurisdiction and PPP in the other is likely to arise when projects are mildly lucrative and/or jurisdictions have moderate fiscal capacity. In this equilibrium, incumbents provide different levels of public services, face different re-election probabilities, and obtain different rents. By differentiating the project governance, incumbents specialize in rent extraction over time, thus hindering yardstick competition although jurisdictions are otherwise identical.