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on Project, Program and Portfolio Management |
| By: | Lars Brugman (Kadaster, Koggelaan); Jan Rouwendal (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam) |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the duration of housing construction projects in the Netherlands. We utilize comprehensive data from the Dutch Land Registry for the period 2013-2022 to investigate the importance of municipal land ownership, building plot price changes, construction costs, development inside areas that are already built-up and competition. The construction process covers the time between issuance of building permits and completion of the project, which can be split in a preparation and construction phase. We find that municipal involvement in projects speeds them up significantly, while increasing building plot prices and especially construction costs have a delaying effect. Construction inside already built-up areas fastens the preparation and slows down actual construction, with an significant net delaying effect on the total duration. Competition decreases the time needed for construction. Our results lend support to real option theory and indicate differences in the objections of private firms and local authorities. |
| Keywords: | housing construction, housing supply, land use planning |
| JEL: | R3 R5 D2 |
| Date: | 2024–01–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tin:wpaper:20240004 |
| By: | Fatih Karanfil; Axel Pierru (King Abdullah Petroleum Studies and Research Center) |
| Abstract: | The selection of welfare-enhancing projects necessitates the determination of the present value of cash flows from a public policy perspective. For an oil-exporting economy, the domestic energy transition often implies displacing oil from domestic consumption. Economic dependence on oil affects the public discount rate for oil-related cash flows in two opposite ways. On the one hand, it renders the economy more volatile, lowering the risk-free discount rate; on the other hand, it increases the correlation between consumption and the oil price, resulting in a higher risk premium. To study these opposite effects, we first derive the public discount rate for an oil-related investment project. Our framework considers economic uncertainty and an oil price-related risk premium, and it makes it possible to value oil at its opportunity cost. We illustrate our methodology using data from a panel of 26 oil-exporting countries. The results indicate that a risk-free discount rate of 3.1% is appropriate for our panel. However, to discount oil-related cash flows, a risk premium of 1.4% needs to be added to the risk-free rate, yielding a risk-adjusted real discount rate of 4.5%. We find significant disparities between country-specific public discount rates. Additionally, for each country, we assess the present value of reducing domestic oil consumption by a barrel per day from 2023 to 2040, decomposing the different effects. Oil-exporting countries can use our estimates to make investment or policy decisions. |
| Keywords: | Applied general model, Bottom up model, Discount rate, Discounting |
| Date: | 2024–06–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:prc:dpaper:ks--2024-dp09 |
| By: | Tören, Tolga |
| Abstract: | Since the beginnings of the 2000s, but especially in the aftermath of the 2008 crisis in Turkey, many policy texts as well as publications expressing the expectations of the business community began to emphasise the importance of the transport sector for the Turkish economy, based on the claim that the country's transport infrastructure should be built in such a way as to connect production centres with the market at the highest possible speed and at the lowest possible cost. During this period, many infrastructure investments in the form of public-private partnership projects (PPP) in many areas of the transport sector, especially motorways and airports, came to the fore in Turkey, and some strategically important ports, roads or railway institutions began to be subjected to privatisation, commercialisation and deregulation. Another dimension of the process mentioned above is the projects that aim not only to make large investments in transport, called "megaprojects", but also to articulate public urban spaces to these megaprojects by commodifying these spaces through the creation of new rental areas, as in the case of the Haydarpaşa Railway Station, which was opened in 1872 in İstanbul's Asian-side district of Kadıköy beside the Bosphorus with the idea that the freight carried by trains reaching the station could be transferred to the ships in the Bosphorus (Fuhrmann, 2022; Middleton, 2011; Wikipedia, 2023a). In 2004, the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government included the station and a million square metre area of the port next to the station in the urban transformation project, which included many examples of gentrification, such as turning the area into a gallery of shopping malls, luxury hotels, luxury apartments and marinas. The project had a complementary relationship with another project, the Marmaray Tube, which connects the Anatolian and European sides of İstanbul with a tube under the Marmara Sea. This means that the Marmaray Tube allows passengers travelling to İstanbul by train from Anatolian cities, or by suburban train from districts on the Anatolian side of İstanbul, to bypass the Haydarpaşa station and travel to the European side through a tunnel under the Marmara Sea. Once the Marmaray Tube is launched, passengers using rail transport would be able to cross to the European side through the Marmaray Tube instead of the ferries that leave Haydarpaşa and reach the opposite shore in about 15 minutes (Fuhrmann, 2022). Therefore, the restructuring of Haydarpaşa station and its surroundings as a rent-seeking area and the Marmaray Tube project were closely linked. In fact, Haydarpaşa station was closed to train traffic after the Marmaray Tube was inaugurated in 2013. (...) |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:gluwps:302302 |
| By: | Aamer Shahid (National Accountability Bureau of Pakistan); Stephan Litschig (National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies, Tokyo, Japan) |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the extent to which competition for public contracts reduces projectlevel rents and bribe payments to public officials. Water supply and sanitation project contractors for the provincial government of Punjab in Pakistan were interviewed on the condition of anonymity and gave access to 237 project-level construction ledgers. Under collusion, contractors pay about 15 percent of the project budget in kickbacks on average. Under competition for the contract, the winning bid and associated available rents go down by about 11 percentage points. Even under competition, public officials take almost 10 percent of the project budget in bribes. |
| Keywords: | Rents, competition, corruption, bribery, public works Higher-Order Approximation |
| Date: | 2024–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ngi:dpaper:24-10 |
| By: | Byerlee, D. |
| Abstract: | Drawing on an extensive review of available documents and my own personal recollections, this history describes the research and capacity building activities in Africa from 1963-1978 of the then Department of Agricultural Economics (AEC) of Michigan State University. The aim is to analyze how MSU came to be a leader in food and agricultural economics related to Africa that endures today. I first review the involvement of AEC faculty in the institutional building project at the University of Nigeria in the 1960s that involved the two main protagonists of the history. First from 1965-1971, Glenn L. Johnson initiated and led large projects to analyze and plan the Nigerian agricultural sector, based on paper and pencil projections and then pioneering simulation modeling. Second, Carl K. Eicher from 1970 built an extensive program of microlevel research involving intensive household surveys mostly focused on Sierra Leone. Both had important legacies in follow-on AEC activities throughout Africa and in the agricultural development profession, more generally. I argue that Eicher ‘seized the moment’ to aggressively recruit African graduate students and others with interests in Africa that through their thesis work and later employment as AEC faculty, became the bedrock of AEC’s food security programs in Africa. |
| Keywords: | Food Security and Poverty, International Development, Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies, Research Methods/ Statistical Methods, Teaching/Communication/Extension/Profession |
| Date: | 2024–09–14 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:midasp:345227 |
| By: | David W. Shanafelt |
| Abstract: | Ecosystem services are at the forefront of ecosystem management, and are a featured component of each research themes of the Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation, et l’Environnement (INRAE). The national research program Transition en Territoires de l'Agriculture, l'Alimentation et l'Environnement (TETRAE) represents INRAE’s long-term commitment to the sustainable management of agricultural, ecological, and urban environments. The project Perceptions et valorisation des services écosystémiques en forêt (PERCEVAL) is funded under the TETRAE program. Specifically, it seeks to assess potential markets for biodiversity and ecosystem services in forests in the Grand-Est region of France, and to develop a digital platform where economic partners and local stakeholders can access its findings to better inform their management decisions. In this document, we provide a baseline database of the supply or provisioning of ecosystem services in the Grand-Est region of France. We estimate a set of eighteen indicators of seven ecosystem services, which include agriculture production potential, biodiversity, aboveground carbon storage, livestock grazing potential, net ecosystem productivity, pollination potential, and soil loss by water erosion. Our analysis uses a mix of land use and land cover data, established relationships between ecosystem services and land use/reflectance data, and published maps of ecosystem service supply from the scientific literature. We use information regarding the locations of agriculture, cities, and forests as well as topography to understand some of the potential drivers of ecosystem service supply in the Grand Est, and measure the interactions – how a change in one service leads to a change in another – between ecosystem services considered in the study. In full transparency, we provide support documentation for our study. This includes metadata, code, and data for estimating ecosystem services in the Grand Est. In general, our findings are consistent with the scientific literature and what we would expect given our models and the data used to estimate them. While we would not recommend interpreting our results as absolute point measurements of ecosystem service supply at specific locations, we do believe that they do a good job at showing where ecosystem services are being supplied in the Grand Est. We discuss our results in the context of ecosystem management in Grand Est – specifically the importance of forests in the region – and how they fit into the broader question of what should be provided from the perspective of society. Finally, we provide a discussion of the limitations of our study. |
| Keywords: | ecosystem services, GIS, Grand Est, interactions. |
| JEL: | C80 Q57 Y10 |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ulp:sbbeta:2024-33 |
| By: | Jose Asturias; Marco Sanfilippo; Asha Sundaram |
| Abstract: | We study the impact of FDI on domestic welfare using a model of internal trade with variable markups that incorporates intranational transport costs. The model allows us to disentangle the various channels through which FDI affects welfare. We apply the model to the case of Ethiopian manufacturing, which received considerable amounts of FDI during our study period. We find substantial gains from the presence of foreign firms, both in the local market and in other connected markets in the country. FDI, however, resulted in a modest worsening of allocative efficiency because foreign firms tend to have significantly higher markups than domestic firms. We report consistent findings from our empirical analysis, which utilises microdata on manufacturing firms, information on FDI projects, and geospatial data on improvements in the road network. |
| Date: | 2024–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cen:wpaper:24-45 |
| By: | Di Foggia, Giacomo; Beccarello, Massimo |
| Abstract: | The drive toward decarbonization has spurred the growth of renewable energy sources, reshaping energy production and consumption patterns. As the energy landscape evolves, so must the market design supporting it to steer the integration of renewable energy. Addressing the challenges of promoting distributed renewable energy is paramount for developing a cleaner energy system and meeting decarbonization targets. This study presents a modern market design that efficiently integrates renewable energy sources, long-term contracts, and flexibility technologies into a single evolved market framework. The approach described herein provides proper price signals for diverse assets and decouples renewable energy from fossil fuels, ensuring economic viability and efficient integration. Taking into consideration key barriers and drivers, the findings provide insights for perfecting energy markets, meeting decarbonization targets, and guiding policymaking to boost cleaner energy systems. |
| Keywords: | market design; RES; Environmental economics; energy markets; energy price; |
| JEL: | H40 L88 Q48 |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:121783 |
| By: | Robson, Sally (Resources for the Future); Russell, Ethan (Resources for the Future); Varela Varela, Ana; Shawhan, Daniel (Resources for the Future) |
| Abstract: | Environmental policymakers in the United States are giving increasing attention to reducing the burden on Americans who face both environmental and economic disadvantages. This study considers an important part of the burden: the concentration of airborne fine particulate matter (PM2.5) due to emissions from the nation’s power sector. Using a highly detailed simulation model of the US power sector paired with a model of PM2.5 formation and dispersion, the study projects some of the environmental and economic effects of nationwide implementation of different policies to reduce power plants’ contributions to PM2.5 in environmentally overburdened, disadvantaged communities (EO DACs). Effects from reduced ground-level ozone also are addressed. Results are compared with a policy that is not geographically targeted—a national price on power sector carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. In addition to the effects on EO DACs, we project the effects for all Americans, Black Americans, Hispanic Americans, Americans in the lowest income quintile, and Americans in highly environmentally burdened (not necessarily disadvantaged) areas. The national power sector CO2 emissions price is the most cost-effective policy for reducing premature mortality from PM2.5 exposure in EO DACs. The other policies, which are geographically targeted toward reducing burdens in EO DACs, have the unintended consequence of increasing PM2.5 exposure in some of those areas. |
| Date: | 2024–09–19 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rff:dpaper:dp-24-15 |