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on Project, Program and Portfolio Management |
| By: | Koltunov, Maksym; Tricarico, Luca; Bisello, Adriano |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the financing of energy communities in Italy, focusing on the roles of key actors, financial instruments, and project builders. It also analyses the economic and ESG impacts that financing actors expect from energy communities. These expectations are shaped by Italy's progressive regulatory framework, which has already supported more than 422 energy communities. We conducted 19 semi-structured interviews with stakeholders involved in financing and building energy communities, supplemented by extensive desk research. Our descriptive analysis identified the financing instruments used by different actors and their recipients both within and beyond the ECs. Thematic analysis highlights the crucial role of municipalities and technical partners in successful project implementation, though municipalities often face significant challenges. Mixed funding, a balanced energy production-consumption ratio, and scalable installations are essential to attract private investment; however, social fund regulations substantially prolong payback periods. Therefore, private actors are primarily driven by indirect economic (e.g., cross-selling, territorial presence) and strategic benefits, while public stakeholders focus on social outcomes. Nonetheless, ECs' potential to address energy poverty is limited by incentive tariff design and modest private-sector engagement. These factors, along with low economic returns, risk undermining ECs viability once subsidies end. The article concludes with stakeholder and policy recommendations aimed at enhancing private investment while advancing the social objectives of energy communities. |
| Keywords: | Energy communities; community energy; Italy; financing; ESG; investment; policy; impact |
| JEL: | G23 L3 L94 L98 |
| Date: | 2026–04–11 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:128721 |
| By: | Parra López, Carlos |
| Abstract: | The appropriateness of using Cost-Benefit Analysis as a decision-making criterion in transport infrastructure planning has been widely questioned due to systematic deviations from appraisal estimates—primarily in investment costs, delivery times, and demand forecasts—and a persistent optimism bias among evaluators that leads to projects with negative social returns, commonly referred to as white elephants. However, there remains relatively little empirical evidence on the extent to which social profitability is affected by these deviations, largely because ex-post evaluations are seldom conducted. In this study, we construct a dataset of infrastructure projects evaluated and financed by Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs) and find that deviations remain modest relative to other studies and evaluators. Most indicators suggest that project profitability is unbiased and that only a relatively small proportion of projects yield negative social returns. We argue that this outcome may be attributed to the MDBs’ internal appraisal policies, particularly regarding project governance (with the banks acting as both evaluators and financiers, and applicant countries serving as project sponsors and executioners) and the mandatory implementation of ex-post evaluations, suggesting that the optimism bias phenomenon is more related to strategic misrepresentation than to a cognitive bias. |
| Keywords: | Optimism bias, strategic misrepresentation, Cost-Benefit Analysis, project appraisal, ex-post revisions. |
| JEL: | R42 |
| Date: | 2026–04–24 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:128847 |
| By: | Nolla, Edgar; BArquero Cabrero, José Daniel |
| Abstract: | Required Abstract + Required Keywords + Required References + |
| Keywords: | municipal investment; local economic development; governance; productive culture; business ecosystem; territorial competitiveness; transaction costs; clusters; public-private cooperation; local institutions; inversión municipal; desarrollo local; gobernanza; cultura productiva; ecosistema empresarial; competitividad territorial; costes de transacción; atracción de inversión; capital territorial |
| JEL: | H70 L52 L53 M13 M14 O18 O21 O22 O3 O38 O43 R11 R12 R33 R38 R52 R53 R58 |
| Date: | 2026–05–24 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:129254 |
| By: | Glushak, Natalia |
| Abstract: | This article introduces the Glushak Institutional Durability Framework (IDF), a seven-dimension diagnostic model for evaluating organizational resilience and founder dependency in construction enterprises and complex service organizations. The framework is derived from a systems-theory analysis of one of history's most precisely documented cases of high-performing institutional collapse: the reign of Mansa Musa I of the Mali Empire (r. 1312–1337), whose extraordinary achievements dissolved within a century of his death. The analysis demonstrates that the collapse was caused not by external military or economic pressure but by six identifiable systems-design failures-founder-concentrated authority, unstructured capital deployment, patronage-dependent knowledge infrastructure, absent succession systems, undistributed accountability, and the erosion of informal governance without formal protection. From this historical evidence, the IDF is derived as a transferable diagnostic instrument applicable to modern construction firms, project-based enterprises, and founder-led service organizations. The IDF moves beyond the Great Man Theory of leadership and posits that organizational durability is a function of systemic redundancy: by replacing individual instinct with evidence-based frameworks and codified governance, operational excellence becomes an institutional trait rather than a personal one. The article further demonstrates the IDF's application to the residential construction sector, where founder dependency is a structural industry condition producing measurable operational fragility. It introduces a proprietary operational framework developed by the author as the operational implementation of the IDF's governance principles at the project level, arguing that together the IDF and the framework constitute a two-level original contribution to construction governance: the IDF operating as a diagnostic instrument at the organizational level, and the framework operating as a governance architecture at the project delivery level. Methodological limitations of the historical case method are acknowledged explicitly. |
| Keywords: | Glushak IDF, institutional durability, founder dependency, construction governance, organizational resilience, systems failure, succession planning, knowledge infrastructure, capital governance, the proprietary operational framework |
| JEL: | F00 |
| Date: | 2026–04–23 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:128826 |