Prioritizing Infrastructure Investments : A Comparative Review of Applications in Chile

Marcelo, Darwin ; House, Schuyler ; Raina, Aditi

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: INFRASTRUCTURE INVESTMENT;    PRIORITIZATION;    PUBLIC INVESTMENT;    PRINCIPAL COMPONENT ANALYSIS;    MULTI-CRITERIA ANALYSIS;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-8602
RP-ID  :  WPS8602

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

Governments worldwide face the difficultchallenge of deciding which infrastructure projects toprioritize and select for implementation, given the limitsof available funding and the need to attain theirdevelopmental goals. The key objective of this report is toconduct a comparative exercise between the World Bank'sInfrastructure Prioritization Framework, a multicriteriaanalysis–based methodology to project prioritization, and amore complex cost-benefit analysis–based approach. Thereport focuses on Chile, which has a well-institutionalizedevaluation process that uses cost-benefit analysis to assessprojects on their quality and ability to generate value formoney. The analysis compares the results of theInfrastructure Prioritization Framework alongsideChile's current cost-benefit analysis–based andmulticriteria analysis approaches to the same subsets ofprojects in the road transport and water reservoirsubsectors, respectively. The results show that theInfrastructure Prioritization Framework has applicationbeyond its original proposition and can complement atraditional cost-benefit analysis by directly consideringsocial and environmental policy goals that are otherwisedifficult to quantify in a cost-benefit analysis. Theanalysis also finds that in Chile there is a discrepancybetween the stated goals and objectives of the appraisalsystem and the actual implementation. In the case oftransport sector projects, there is an evident deviationbetween cost-benefit analysis–based selection policy andactual decisions made for project implementation. In thecase of water catchment selection, there is a bias towardprojects with higher financial-economic performance ascompared to social-environmental performance, despite policyintentions to afford consideration to environmental andsocial development goals.