nep-ppm New Economics Papers
on Project, Program and Portfolio Management
Issue of 2011‒01‒16
seven papers chosen by
Arvi Kuura
Parnu College - Tartu University

  1. Boundary Management in Projects: Antecedents, Activities and Performance By Lisbeth Brøde; Perttu Dietrich
  2. Knowledge Communication in Product Development Projects By Lisbeth Brøde; Perttu Dietrich
  3. The economics of infrastructure finance: Public-private partnerships versus public provision By Eduardo Engel; Ronald Fischer; Alexander Galetovic
  4. Cities and Carbon Market Finance: Taking Stock of Cities' Experience With Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and Joint Implementation (JI) By Christa Clapp; Alexia Leseur; Olivier Sartor; Gregory Briner; Jan Corfee-Morlot
  5. Environmental concern and the choice of transport infrastructure projects in Sweden By Jussila Hammes, Johanna
  6. How Can Donors Create Incentives for Results and Flexibility for Fragile States? A Proposal for IDA - Working Paper 227 By Alan Gelb
  7. How large is the government spending multiplier ? evidence from World Bank lending By Kraay, Aart

  1. By: Lisbeth Brøde; Perttu Dietrich (Department of Environmental and Business Economics, University of Southern Denmark)
    Abstract: Despite increasing interest among practitioners and the recent scientific explo-rations on the dynamics of boundary management in project and team contexts, the existing studies seems to lack empirical understanding on the factors that explain the boundary management behavior of project managers. The purpose of this study is to analyze how the three antecedent factors - cross-functional participation, embeddedness and top management control - are related to four different types of boundary management activities practiced by project managers, namely coordinating, enabling, reporting and guarding. Based on the sample of 236 projects, the results show that embeddedness and top-management control have positive influence on boundary-management activities and cross-functional participation has both positive and negative contribution to boundary management activities. Furthermore, the results reveal that boundary management activities have both positive and negative influence on project performance. Contributions of the research are discussed, as well as practical implications, limitations, and directions for future research.
    Keywords: Boundary management, project team, embeddedness, cross-functional participation, top-management control
    Date: 2010–12
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sdk:wpaper:106&r=ppm
  2. By: Lisbeth Brøde; Perttu Dietrich (Department of Environmental and Business Economics, University of Southern Denmark)
    Abstract: During the last decades, a number of studies have been concerned with com-munication related to new product development. These have looked at either intra-organizational communication between departments or communication between new product development teams and external stakeholders such as customers or suppliers. Only little research, however, has combined internal and external stakeholder communication and explored the role of technology uncertainty on communication. The purpose of this study is to examine how technology uncertainty affects project manager communication behavior during new product development. We carried out an embedded case study of a major NPD project in the automation industry. The findings indicate that technology uncertainty is positively related to communication frequency between project manager and project stakeholders during the early phase of NPD project. In addition we found a negative association between technology uncertainty and the breadth and depth of communication between project manager and stakeholders in early phase of the NPD project. These findings indicate that under high technology uncertainty, managers of NPD projects modify their communication behavior not only with respect to how frequently they communicate with stakeholders, but also to which stakeholders they communicate and how deeply they engage different stakeholders in different phases of the new product development project.
    Date: 2010–12
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sdk:wpaper:105&r=ppm
  3. By: Eduardo Engel; Ronald Fischer; Alexander Galetovic
    Abstract: We examine the economics of infrastructure finance, focusing on public provision and public-private partnerships (PPPs). We show that project finance is appropriate for PPP projects, because there are few economies of scope and assets are project specific. Furthermore, we suggest that the higher cost of finance of PPPs is not an argument in favour of public provision, since it appears to reflect the combination of deficient contract design and the cost-cutting incentives embedded in PPPs. Thus in the case of a correctly designed PPP contract, the higher cost of capital may be the price to pay for the efficiency advantages of PPPs. We also examine the role of government activities in PPP financing (e.g. revenue guarantees, renegotiations) and their consequences. Finally, we discuss how to include PPPs, revenue guarantees and the results of PPP contract renegotiation in the government balance sheet.
    Date: 2010
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:edj:ceauch:276&r=ppm
  4. By: Christa Clapp; Alexia Leseur; Olivier Sartor; Gregory Briner; Jan Corfee-Morlot
    Abstract: The importance of cities in climate policy stems from the simple reality that they house the majority of the world’s population, two-thirds of world energy use and over 70% of global energy use emissions. At the international level, global carbon markets have become an important new source of financing for mitigation projects and programmes. Yet to date, the participation of urban authorities and of urban mitigation projects in the global carbon market remains extremely limited. The under-representation of urban carbon projects can be linked both to the difficulties to implement urban mitigation projects and to the difficulties for cities to access the carbon market. This paper reviews 10 in–depth case studies of urban projects proposed and operating within the realm of Joint Implementation (JI) and the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) of the Kyoto Protocol. It explores the drivers of success for projects, examining in particular: types of projects that have been successful and their profitability; leadership and other roles of various actors in project initiation development and operation (i.e. local, regional and national governments as well as international, private sector or other non-governmental organisations); the role of local cobenefits; and project financial structure and risk management approaches. This paper also considers how these lessons learned may inform decisions in the future about how to best tap the potential for carbon markets to offer increased levels of financial support for urban mitigation projects or programmes.<BR>La place accordée aux villes dans la politique climatique découle d’un constat simple : elles abritent la majorité de la population mondiale, consomment les deux tiers de l’énergie mondiale et produisent plus de 70 % des émissions mondiales liées à cette consommation. Au niveau international, les marchés mondiaux du carbone sont devenus une nouvelle source importante de financement pour les projets et les programmes d’atténuation. Pourtant, à ce jour, la participation des autorités urbaines et des projets urbains d’atténuation au marché mondial du carbone reste encore extrêmement limitée. La sous-représentation des projets urbains dans le domaine du carbone est à mettre en rapport avec les difficultés inhérentes à la mise en oeuvre de projets urbains d’atténuation et avec les obstacles rencontrés par les villes pour accéder au marché du carbone. Ce rapport examine dix études de cas approfondies portant sur des projets urbains, envisagés ou existants, dans le domaine de la mise en oeuvre conjointe (MOC) ou du mécanisme pour un développement propre (MDP) du Protocole de Kyoto. Il explore les facteurs de succès des projets, en examinant plus particulièrement les types de projets qui ont réussi et leur rentabilité ; le rôle moteur des autorités et celui des différents acteurs dans le lancement des projets, leur développement et leur fonctionnement (autorités locales, régionales et nationales, et organisations internationales, non gouvernementales et du secteur privé) ; les avantages connexes locaux ; et les approches en matière de structure financière des projets et de gestion des risques. Cette étude envisage aussi comment les enseignements tirés de ces expériences pourront à l’avenir éclairer les décisions futures sur les moyens de mobiliser au mieux le potentiel des marchés du carbone au service de l’accroissement du soutien financier aux projets ou programmes urbains d’atténuation.
    Keywords: climate change, Kyoto protocol, cities, Greenhouse gas mitigation, Carbon finance, changement climatique, Protocole de Kyoto, atténuation des émissions de gaz à effet de serre, finance carbone, villes
    JEL: F30 F53 G15 H87
    Date: 2010–11–19
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:envaaa:29-en&r=ppm
  5. By: Jussila Hammes, Johanna (Swedish National Road and Transport Research Institute, VTI)
    Abstract: One of the goals of transport policy in Sweden is to minimize the impact from transport on the environment. Using a database consisting of over 800 rail, road and maritime transport infrastructure projects, we estimate whether environmental factors, such as negative environmental effects arising from the project (noise and barrier effects), or emissions of five pollutants (NOx, VOC, CO2, SO2 and PM) affect the choice of which projects will be built. For a broader model including all three transport modes, we find that projects that cause negative environmental effects in fact have a greater probability of being included in the National or a Regional Transport Infrastructure Plan for 2010-2021. For a narrower model including only road investments, we find that if we include a measure for the Net Benefit/Investment Cost Ratio (NBIR), only the negative environmental effects matter and raise the probability of a project being included in a Plan. Excluding the NBIR measure reveals that what matters are the CO emissions and traffic safety measures. Thus, an increase in the emissions of CO lowers the project's probability of being included in a Plan, and traffic safety benefits increase the probability.
    Keywords: Transport infrastructure; Environment; Emissions
    JEL: D70 H54 Q58
    Date: 2010–12–21
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:vtiwps:2010_017&r=ppm
  6. By: Alan Gelb
    Abstract: International Development Association (IDA) donors and others operating a country performance-based allocation system face two difficult problems: how to strengthen incentives to produce and document development results and how to increase flexibility for fragile states. Fragile states have the greatest need for projects, but their projects tend to rate poorly in performance-based allocations systems, which provide little incentive to produce successful projects in fragile states or other countries. This paper offers a proposal to address these issues. First, rebalance incentives to increase attention to results and to the frameworks for monitoring and evaluating them. Second, supplement performance-based allocations to fragile states through a performance fund to enable well-performing projects to be scaled up. Doing so would change the conversation about allocations to fragile states from "how much?" to "where can we show value?" and lead to a stronger and more general link between development results and development financing.
    Keywords: Fragile States, International Financial Institutions
    Date: 2010–10
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cgd:wpaper:227&r=ppm
  7. By: Kraay, Aart
    Abstract: This paper proposes a novel method of isolating fluctuations in public spending that are likely to be uncorrelated with contemporaneous macroeconomic shocks and can be used to estimate government spending multipliers. The approach relies on two features unique to many low-income countries: (1) borrowing from the World Bank finances a substantial fraction of public spending, and (2) actual spending on World Bank-financed projects is typically spread out over several years following the original approval of the project. These two features imply that fluctuations in spending on World Bank projects in a given year are in large part determined by fluctuations in project approval decisions made in previous years, and so are unlikely to be correlated with shocks to output in the current year. World Bank project-level disbursement data are used to isolate the component of public spending associated with project approvals from previous years, which in turn can be used to estimate government spending multipliers, in a sample of 29 aid-dependent low-income countries. The estimated multipliers are small, reasonably precisely estimated, and rarely significantly different from zero.
    Keywords: Debt Markets,Public Sector Economics,Banks&Banking Reform,Urban Economics,Economic Stabilization
    Date: 2010–12–01
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:5500&r=ppm

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