Assessing the fairness of a Project Financing Formula on successive generations

Abstract

Major transport projects are appraised mostly through cost-benefit analysis. In practice, though, decision-making takes into account many other aspects that are more. or less political. When properly defined, they may be introduced in the decision process through multi-criteria analysis. Most important among these aspects are redistributive effects, which are, typically, associated to territorial, social and environmental considerations. There are, however, some important redistribution effects that have never been properly analysed and quantified until now. They are related to the evolution, throughout the projects' lifespan, of the costs and benefits of the project affecting successive (overlapped) generations, and of the financing structure adopted, which determines who the final payers will be: either users, through tolls or tariffs for the use of the project, and/or taxpayers. Relating the actual payment for the investment to the net benefits occurring to the users and citizens in general for each generation, it is possible to ascertain if there is a balanced intergenerational distribution of burdens and benefits over the whole project lifecycle.

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