Panayiotou, A (2017) Infrastructure as a financial asset class. PhD thesis, University of London, University College London, UK.
Abstract
One of the greatest challenges of 21st century is how to address the infrastructure needs which are fast arising around the world. More and better quality infrastructure is demanded in new economies such as China and India, while in mature economies such as Europe and the United States, ageing infrastructure calls for immediate repair and replacement. Even though governments understand the importance of infrastructure as a catalyst of growth, they can no longer sustain these investments alone. As a result, we can clearly observe the presence of a continuous infrastructure investment gap. In response, governments worldwide are turning to private investors in order to sustainably bridge this widening gap. However, private investors remain cautious in relation to this young asset class, as there is still limited information about the financial performance of infrastructure. The goal of this thesis is to study, for the first time in detail, infrastructure as a new financial asset. This analysis is among the few to examine the investment characteristics of different infrastructure sectors and sub-sectors, and is the first to study the significance of this differentiation at the portfolio level. Using different optimisation techniques, this thesis seeks to evaluate whether private investors should focus on a single infrastructure sector, or instead are better of investing in a portfolio containing multiple infrastructure sectors. Lastly, the study aims to prove evidentially the best way to access infrastructure by comparing the listed and the much opaque unlisted infrastructure space. The results of this thesis show that infrastructure consists of different heterogeneous infrastructure sectors thus, by focusing on a single listed infrastructure sector, fund managers will be able to gain complete knowledge of the performance of the sector and still enjoy diversification benefits. Moreover, results indicate that, despite the attractive performance of unlisted infrastructure, public policy is a key lever in attracting private investments into infrastructure.
| Item Type: | Thesis (Doctoral) |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | China; Europe; India; United States; bridge; differentiation; diversification; investment; optimisation; policy; public policy; replacement |
| Index terms: | manager, United States, financial performance, replacement, repair, China, public policy, infrastructure sector, differentiation, Europe, investor, optimization technique, infrastructure investment, presence, diversification, private investment, India |
| Subjects: | sociology, industry analysis, public policy, environmental science, economic analysis, organization, materials science, practitioner, market analysis, physical geography and landforms, business analysis, algorithms, maintenance engineering, Geography |
| Topics: | Business Strategy, Research Practice, Roles and Professions, Stakeholder Management, Governance, Digital Applications, Organizational Design, Engineering Principles, Geographical Context, Sustainability, Procurement |
| Descriptive scope: | 2 PC |
N.B. Descriptive scope is a count of how many of the five facets of empirical research are indicated by the words used in title, abstract and keywords. It is not intended as a judgement on the research; merely a count of the kind of word we would expect to indicate Phenomenon, Concepts, Theoretical framing, Empirical techniques, Analytical techniques. If all five are present, then a code of “5 PCTEA” will indicate this. If you feel the coding for this record is questionable, we welcome discussion around the terms we matched or the way we categorized them. The facet you would expect may not be coded, or a facet may be coded inappropriately. This can also bear on a larger question, of which facets should be treated as defining in construction management research. Please get in touch, and we will look at it. More details here