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on Project, Program and Portfolio Management |
| By: | L Salahaldin (ESCE, International Business School, OMNES Education Research Center); S Elayoubi (L2S - Laboratoire des signaux et systèmes - CentraleSupélec - Université Paris-Saclay - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique); V Varma (CRAN - Centre de Recherche en Automatique de Nancy - UL - Université de Lorraine - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) |
| Abstract: | Crowdfunding platforms (CFP) are increasingly interested in enhancing their impact, by funding projects with positive environmental and social impacts. This article is the first that models the CFP strategies in this context. We compare two attitudes: a neutral (passive) facilitating attitude and an active one. In the latter case, the CFP implicitly favors a subset of the projects by promoting them to the crowd. We model the utility of the CFP, linked to its monetary outcome and the impact of the funded projects, and formulate an optimization problem that maximizes it by acting on the promotion strategy. We show how to solve this problem using real options and dynamic programming. For applying this framework, we perform an empirical study based on a large dataset that quantifies the attractiveness gain for projects when they are promoted by the platform. We then propose a novel hybrid empirical/analytical method, where platform data is processed and provides input parameters to the optimization tool. Our results show that substantial gains are expected when applying the optimization framework with respect to a platform adopting a classical passive attitude. Our study provides guidelines for platform managers on how to design and implement strategies that maximize their impact. |
| Keywords: | real options, decision making, environmental and social impact, utility maximization, Crowdfunding |
| Date: | 2026–01–12 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-05744845 |
| By: | Baumgürtner, C. L.; Prieto, J. C.; Hepburn, C.; Ritz, R. A. |
| Abstract: | What rate of return is needed to compensate investors in an infrastructure project? This question is central to the delivery of future investment into sectors like energy, water and transport. CAPM is often difficult to implement for unlisted green-field investments, and its assumptions sit uneasily with the infrastructure context. In this paper, we present a new simple model - the Infrastructure Risk Pricing Model (IRPM)—which better reflects real-world practice and also prices idiosyncratic risk. We show how IRPM can perform better than CAPM in estimating investor hurdle rates, especially for concentrated funds. To illustrate, we argue that IRPM rationalizes investor behaviour in Sizewell C, a recent large, government-backed UK nuclear energy project. |
| Keywords: | Cost of Equity, Hurdle Rate, Infrastructure Investment, Idiosyncratic Risk, Regulation |
| JEL: | G11 G12 G31 H54 L94 Q48 |
| Date: | 2026–08–21 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cam:camdae:2671 |
| By: | Nicolas Jullien (MARSOUIN - Môle Armoricain de Recherche sur la SOciété de l'information et des usages d'INternet - UR - Université de Rennes - UBS - Université de Bretagne Sud - ENSAI - Ecole Nationale de la Statistique et de l'Analyse de l'Information [Bruz] - Groupe ENSAE-ENSAI - Groupe des Écoles Nationales d'Économie et Statistique - UBO EPE - Université de Brest - IMT - Institut Mines-Télécom [Paris] - UR2 - Université de Rennes 2 - UBL - Université Bretagne Loire - IMT Atlantique - IMT Atlantique - IMT - Institut Mines-Télécom [Paris], LEGO - Laboratoire d'Economie et de Gestion de l'Ouest - UBS - Université de Bretagne Sud - UBO EPE - Université de Brest - IMT - Institut Mines-Télécom [Paris] - IBSHS - Institut Brestois des Sciences de l'Homme et de la Société - UBO EPE - Université de Brest - UBL - Université Bretagne Loire - IMT Atlantique - IMT Atlantique - IMT - Institut Mines-Télécom [Paris], IMT Atlantique - DI2S - Département Interdisciplinaire de Sciences Sociales - IMT Atlantique - IMT Atlantique - IMT - Institut Mines-Télécom [Paris]); Karine Roudaut (LABERS - Laboratoire d'Études et de Recherche en Sociologie - UBS - Université de Bretagne Sud - UBO EPE - Université de Brest - IBSHS - Institut Brestois des Sciences de l'Homme et de la Société - UBO EPE - Université de Brest, UBO EPE - Université de Brest) |
| Abstract: | This article examines whether collective and voluntary practices of online knowledge production, such as Wikipedia and free/open-source software (FOSS) projects, can genuinely be considered commons in Elinor Ostrom's sense. It argues that it is contributions, rather than access to knowledge, that function as the regulated, subtractive resource, in the projects developed and managed by a collective. In these projects, which succeeded in attracting contributors, contributors compete for publication spaces and peer attention, creating the need for governance systems analogous to those in traditional commons. It shows that digital knowledge projects exhibit structural parallels with physical commons, such as hierarchical bundles of rights, differentiation between users and contributors (who consume the subtractive resource), and policymakers, as well as the centrality of monitoring and rule-making to sustain cooperation. Digital infrastructures (e.g. knowledge artifact modularity, algorithmic tools, and platform architectures) facilitate large-scale participation while enabling scalable monitoring and nested governance structures. These technologies also facilitate community formation, where membership is achieved through sustained contribution and recognition rather than pre-defined boundaries.The article concludes that not all open or collaborative digital projects qualify as commons; only those in which a community collectively governs access to the subtractive resource do so. It also raises open research questions concerning sanctions, conflict resolution, multi-layered governance and the evolving relationship between digital commons, institutional frameworks and their socio-technical environments. |
| Keywords: | community, governance, digital, knowledge economics, commons |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-05743297 |
| By: | Hall, David; Weghmann, Vera; Adam, Al-Hassan |
| Abstract: | Private Equity is not the only problem. Privatisation creates downward pressure on jobs and pay and standards of service, upward pressure on fares and prices, and undermines democratic accountability and planning, whether the private companies are owned by multinationals, or local firms, - or private equity (PE) groups. PE’s distinct features - debt-financed acquisitions, rapid profit extraction and exits - do encourage more aggressive reduction of costs, cutting employment by 4% compared with other forms of ownership, and undermining services. PE’s separation of investors from companies obscures ownership and responsibility. Its global growth has levelled off, and it is finding exits more difficult, which may increase pressure for higher returns. Direct provision of public transport services by public sector remains the dominant form of ownership globally, but privatisations of are growing, with the usual damaging consequences, led by groups based in France and the UK, including some owned by PE. Projects under China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) are often similar to PPPs, dominated by Chinese state-owned construction firms, but there is no PE presence. PE is now entering public transport not only through privatisation of operations but also through other parts of the supply chain. This involves some of the biggest PE groups in the world, but also smaller national-based PE firms. The biggest area is leasing of electric trains and buses, where there is a big growth in demand due to climate change policies. Leasing can be used to extract continuing high profits, which puts pressure on labour costs and fares of actual operations, as well as destroying crucial public sector capacity and skills in maintaining and designing e-buses and trains. International financial institutions (IFIs) such as the World Bank Group, and national development financial institutions (DFIs), play a key role in promoting and participating in PE investment in e-bus programmes, and railways, port and airports construction. They also channel development and climate funds through PPPs to ensure that they support private companies, including PE firms, using public and development finance to guarantee investor returns. Public ownership remains a better and more cost-effective option, not only for operation but also investment in new systems, e-buses etc. Successful public-led cases, such as Madrid’s metro system, achieve world-class outcomes through in-house expertise, public ownership, and finance, demonstrating the power of public economics which outperforms privatised approaches. Unions, social movements and progressive political parties should continue to prioritise resistance to privatisation of transport services at local, national and international level, and resistance to all forms of PPPs and blended finance. This should include pressure on IFIs and DFIs to channel financial support to public sector, and also targeting PE as a particularly damaging and anti-democratic form of privatisation, but not as the main issue. Campaigns should also address the problem of leasing, calling for governments to support e-bus and e-locomotive purchases through cost-effective and accountable public finance mechanisms, combined with local manufacturing of these vehicles. The whole sector and supply chain should become a focus for national economic policy to develop sustainable skilled employment in socially useful production. In addition, wherever privatisation exists, there should be demands to eliminate public subsidies or guarantees to private operators or leasers, and to limit the extraction of dividends and interest payments. |
| Keywords: | private equity; public transport; China; electric buses; electric trains |
| Date: | 2026–05–22 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gpe:wpaper:54314 |
| By: | Pradyumna Rao; Daniel T. Kaffine; Bri-Mathias Hodge |
| Abstract: | As US power markets contend with growing demand for firm generation, the nuclear industry has offered Small Modular Reactors (SMRs). However, how these concepts would fare in a rapidly evolving power grid is unclear, given the paucity of operational examples. Current literature, informed by substantial cost escalations for traditional nuclear plants, focuses on the investment costs SMRs need to achieve for private investment feasibility. However, this work finds that the operating and marginal costs of SMRs are more critical to economic feasibility in market environments. This work dispatches SMRs using a flexible operations model, considering revenue from two main electric markets, capacity and wholesale energy markets, with and without policy support. Manufacturer advertised costs for investment and operating costs are used, with fuel costs calculated from manufacturer provided design parameters. Results indicate that SMRs are uneconomical primarily because investment cost reductions are offset by increased marginal costs. As such, an environment of prices and subsidies beyond historic norms are necessary to attract private investment at manufacturer advertised cost benchmarks. Current SMRs are as profitable as advanced estimates of the AP1000 traditional nuclear reactor, and if investment costs escalate at the average rate for nuclear projects, they are similar to Vogtle 3 & 4. In projected future power markets, reductions in marginal cost may be more beneficial than those in investment costs. |
| Date: | 2026–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2609.08929 |
| By: | Endre Cs\'oka |
| Abstract: | The VCG family and the AGV mechanism are two classical approaches to efficient implementation in the static social choice problem. In 2024, Cs\'oka et al. showed that AGV has critical weaknesses. In contrast, the transferable-utility Guaranteed Utility Mechanism (TU-GUM) retains all the standard desirable properties of AGV while adding further ones, including collusion-proofness, because it implements efficiency in Guaranteed Utility Equilibrium. TU-GUM also applies to a more general dynamic setting with multiple extensions. Moreover, TU-GUM is a special case of an even more general and robust mechanism that combines contingent first-price tendering with the coordinated execution of dynamic stochastic multi-agent projects through a surprisingly simple rule. This paper summarizes and connects existing results from a different perspective, with some minor new observations. |
| Date: | 2026–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2608.28722 |