Several people recently called to my attention an op-ed in The New York Times headlined, “Why Are We Allowing the Private Sector to Take Over Our Public Works?” The villains of the piece were the several hundred infrastructure investment funds that have grown dramatically over the past decade. These investment funds are a source of equity for both greenfield and brownfield public-private partnerships, and they have become a means by which public pension systems in Europe, Australia, and North America have diversified their investment portfolios, aiming to raise their investment returns to help fund those public pensions.
By coincidence, the op-ed
