Public-private partnerships (PPPs) are increasingly used to address pressing infrastructure demands. PPPs typically involve a long-term contract between governments and private firms for design, construction, operation, and maintenance of infrastructure where private finance is put at risk throughout the contract's duration. By bundling these key tasks in the hands of the private sector, PPPs are expected to address certain limitations of traditional delivery approaches by capitalizing on private sector expertise and capabilities. Yet, while studies have shown the feasibility of PPPs in many cases, key challenges such as asymmetric information, incentive misalignment, bounded rationality, high transaction costs, and contract incompleteness are greater in PPPs than in traditional projects. This is because PPPs involve numerous heterogeneous stakeholders and multiple discrete project phases spanning decades. These challenges interact and result in high uncertainty in PPPs. Thus, how to address uncertainties is crucial in designing and implementing a PPP contract. Using a deliberately sampled data set of 20 contemporary greenfield highway contracts in Australia, the Philippines, and India, three studies explore the current practices of three key areas in PPPs: risk allocation, decision rights allocation, and lifecycle project management. Together, these studies shed light on how contracting parties design contracts ex ante to address ex post uncertainty due to inevitable changes in circumstances and requirements. In the study of risk allocation, the results support the risk transfer tenet and risk allocation principle and criteria. For instance, most of the comprehensive set of the 35 key risks investigated were transferred to the private sector or shared; exogenous risks had more consistent allocation and were shared more than endogenous risks across the three countries. A high level of similarity in risk allocation within each country and across the countries was uncovered regardless of remarkably different characteristics at both project and country levels. The similarities among these countries may indicate common risk allocation practices across other comparable countries in the region, and it provides the basis for revisiting existing literature such as studies about the relationship between institutional strength and the extent of risk transfer. Several silent or indeterminate provisions were also identified, indicating areas for improving current contractual designs. Some shift of responsibilities to the private sector in tolled projects (typically longer contract duration) compared with government-paid ones (typically shorter) was observed across the countries. Some limited trends over time such as less silent or indeterminate provisions and more risks retained by the public sector in recent projects in the Philippines and India, respectively, were also observed. For the examination of decision rights allocation, the key finding was the dominant level of owner control in a comprehensive set of 10 key provisions in almost all contracts regardless of the country's level of development and the substantial number of risks transferred to the private sector. The observed owner control aligns with agency theory, and this finding is likely driven by governments' accountability concerns and risk aversion. The extensive level of owner control does not support the argument that interprets property rights theory as applied to PPPs as providing the private sector with more extensive decision rights given their significant role in the decades-long duration of a PPP project. Contracts in Australia were more rigid, having distinctive, rigorous, and more detailed requirements with more ex-ante effort required to specify numerous provisions. Some limited national trends include contractual design evolvement over time in some provisions in the Philippines and India. The identified silent provisions indicate areas for improvement. For the lifecycle project management inquiry, the practices explored specify project structure, requirements, processes, and procedures that function as key elements of measurement- and process-based management throughout a project's contract period. Implementing these elements can trigger corresponding governance mechanisms to promote contractual and relational governance. Contracts in Australia tend to be more comprehensive in many areas requiring more ex ante contracting efforts such as naming contractors in contracts and ex post implementation efforts to comply with many distinctive requirements such as those concerning environmental and community/user management. Meanwhile, contracts in Australia likely rely more on trust-based management versus monitoring/control-based management, having limited requirements for monitoring and safeguarding the contract. Together, these findings provide insights to more comprehensively understand how contracts are designed to address uncertainties. The common and different practices revealed benefit both practitioners and scholars and consequently suggest pathways toward enhancing the potential benefits and efficiency of PPPs; the former by facilitating informed decisions such as market entry, project selection, and strategic contractual designs at both the project-level and policy-level, especially for evolving markets such as the Philippines, India, and other regional and comparable countries; the latter by providing a framework with supporting contractual evidence that (i) reinforces and supports numerous contractual and governance theories and principles and (ii) establishes a baseline for multiple subsequent inquiries such as examining the key factors affecting parties' contractual choices, the effectiveness of the practices uncovered, and the gaps with parties' preferences. The research is characterized by its broad scope exploring comprehensive sets of key provisions in 20 contracts spanning three countries and its important implications for both theory and practice of PPP contractual design. / Doctor of Philosophy / Public-private partnerships (PPPs) involve decades-long contracts between governments and private firms where a single private firm typically designs, builds, finances, operates, and maintains a specific infrastructure facility for revenues mainly from users (tolls) or governments. PPPs are theoretically expected to address certain limitations of traditional delivery approaches by capitalizing on private sector expertise and capabilities. Numerous studies have shown the feasibility of PPPs in many projects and sectors in various countries. However, PPP transactions are characterized by high uncertainty as a result of the involvement of numerous diverse stakeholders and the integration of multiple project lifecycle phases that span decades where changes in circumstances and requirements are inevitable. Contracts are the key and central instrument in project governance. Thus, addressing uncertainties is crucial in designing and implementing a PPP contract. Using a data set of 20 contemporary greenfield highway contracts in Australia, the Philippines, and India, this dissertation explored three key issues: risk allocation, decision rights allocation, and lifecycle project management. Risk allocation refers to which contracting party would take responsibility for certain contractual requirements with corresponding consequences or benefits. Decision rights allocation defines the boundaries of public sector involvement and consequently its control of the private sector's activities and decisions. Lifecycle project management is a set of contractual requirements, project structure, processes, and principles that steer the actions of and interactions between parties over a project's lifecycle. For risk allocation, the results reveal that most of the 35 key risks investigated were either transferred to the private sector or shared. One interesting and, to some extent, unexpected finding was the relatively high level of similarity in risk allocation within each country and across the countries, despite remarkably different characteristics at both project and country levels. This suggests that similar risk allocation practices may be employed across regional and comparable countries and perhaps beyond. No noticeable transnational trends or variances were observed except some shift of responsibilities to the private sector in user-paid projects (typically longer contract duration) compared with government-paid ones (typically shorter). Some limited trends over time such as a decrease in silent or indeterminate provisions and more risks retained by the public sector in recent projects in the Philippines and India, respectively, were observed. Additionally, exogenous risks (external to the project) had more consistent allocation and were shared more than endogenous risks (within a project's boundary). Some silent provisions were identified, indicating areas for improvement of contractual designs. For decision rights allocation, the key finding was the dominant level of owner control in 10 key provisions in almost all contracts, regardless of the country's level of development and the substantial number of risks transferred to the private sector. Contracts in Australia were more rigid, having distinctive, rigorous, and more detailed requirements with more efforts required beforehand to specify numerous provisions. Some limited national trends include contractual design evolvement over time in some provisions in the Philippines and India. Some silent provisions were identified, indicating areas for improvement or consideration. For lifecycle project management, parties designed contractual practices to rely on (1) contractual requirements with consequences for noncompliance and harmonious and collaborative relationships between parties, (2) rigid and detailed requirements and flexible ways to correspond to uncertainties, and (3) output-based management approaches (e.g., performance linked payments) and process-based management approaches (e.g., regular meetings and communication, procedures to resolve disputes) to address future uncertainties throughout a project's contract duration. Contracts in Australia tend to be more comprehensive in many areas requiring more ex ante contracting efforts such as naming contractors in contracts and ex post implementation efforts to comply with many distinctive requirements such as those concerning environment and community/user management. Meanwhile, contracts in Australia likely rely more on trust-based management versus monitoring/control-based management, having limited requirements for monitoring and safeguarding the contract. Overall, the common and different practices revealed facilitate informed decisions such as market entry, project selection, and strategic contractual designs at both the project-level and policy-level, especially for evolving markets such as the Philippines, India, and other regional and comparable countries. For instance, international developers expecting high revenue can choose the Philippines over India since revenue risk is typically a private risk in the Philippines but shared in India. Additionally, governments in the Philippines and India might want to consider adopting more trust-based management practices so that their contracts would better attract and incentivize international developers. The findings also provide contractual evidence that supports numerous contract and governance theories and principles and establishes a baseline for subsequent inquiries such as investigating the effectiveness of the practices uncovered, the key reasons for parties' contractual choices, and the gaps with parties' preferences. The research is characterized by its broad scope exploring comprehensive sets of key provisions in 20 contracts spanning three countries and its important implications for both theory and practice of PPP contractual designs.

This dissertation is composed by three essays that explore the relationship between good IT governance and effective information security services. Governance steers and verifies performance of fiduciary duties, through the implementation of proper governance mechanisms. With a focus on information security, this essay presents three categories of governance mechanisms - process-based, structural, and relational. When properly instituted, they work together to ensure that IT understands business requirements for information security and strives to fulfill them. An explanation is offered about the efficacy of those mechanisms, based on an agency theory perspective that views IT as an agent for business. The two underlying causes for agency problems are goal incongruence and information asymmetry between the agent and the principal. Governance mechanisms help to reduce both goal incongruence and information asymmetry. Hence, they lead to desired outcomes. A theoretical framework is presented and empirical tested.

Mi tesis utiliza la noción de contrato relacional para explicar pautas aparentemente contraintuitivas de organización vertical. El primer capitulo muestra que, cuando existen externalidades entre empresas, la integración vertical reduce la tentación de sus ejecutivos de bajar el esfuerzo, haciendo sus promisas de cooperar más creibles. El segundo capitulo muestra que, cuando una regulación europea prohibió los territorios exclusivos en la distribución de automóviles, los fabricantes impusieron estándares de servicio y precios maximos, estos últimos para reducir la tentación de los concesionarios de romper pactos informales para no competir. El tercer capitulo muestra que, pese a la asignación simétrica de derechos de decisión en sus contratos de franquicia, los fabricantes de coches dictan estándares a los concesionarios, remunerandolos con descuentos discrecionales. Eso sugiere que los fabricantes son delegados informalmente para tomar decisiones, y usan sus podéres contractuales como recurso extremo contra la tentación de los concesionarios de rechazarlas. / My thesis applies the notion of relational contracts to explain seemingly counterintuitive vertical arrangements. The first chapter shows that, in the presence of spillovers between an upstream and a downstream firm, vertical integration reduces the downstream manager's present gains from shirking, making her promise to cooperate with the upstream firm credible. The second chapter shows that, after a European regulation prohibited exclusive territories, car dealership contracts switched to a mix of service standards and price ceilings, and argues that price ceilings were introduced to reduce the dealers' short-run profits from reneging on an informal "no-compete" agreement. The third chapter shows that, despite the even allocation of decision rights in dealership contracts, car manufacturers dictate performance standards ex post, and reward dealers through discretionary discounts. This suggests manufacturers are informally delegated to set standards, and use formal decision rights as a last resort against the dealers' temptation to overturn their decisions.

Dans cette thèse, j’explore les modèles de prise de décision basés sur des préférences multiples. Dans la première partie de la thèse, j’analyse certaines des implications de l’adoption des préférences multiples en économie et de différentes façons dont elles peuvent être conceptualisées et utilisées dans ce domaine. En particulier, je révise certaines des conséquences positives et normatives des préférences sur des préférences (chapitre 1), la distinction comportementale entre des modèles de préférences uniques et des modèles de préférences multiples (chapitre 2), et j’introduis un nouveau cadre de choix avec le temps dans lequel les modèles de préférences multiples peuvent être plus facilement caractérisés (chapitre 3). La deuxième partie de la thèse est con- sacrée à l’analyse théorique et empirique du comportement économique qui peut être représenté comme s’il résulte de la prise de décision avec des préférences multiples. En particulier, je construis un modèle pour étudier les effets des préférences multiples sur le comportement politique (chapitre 4) et je mène une étude expérimentale pour distinguer les différentes motivations derrière une potentielle valeur intrinsèque du droit de décision (chapitre 5). / In this thesis I explore decision making models based on multiple preferences. In the first part of the thesis, I analyze some of the implications of adopting multiple preferences in economics and different ways in which they can be conceptualized and used within this field. In particular, I review some of the positive and normative consequences of preferences over preferences (Chapter 1), the behavioral (in)distinguishability of the single and multiple preferences models (Chapter 2), and introduce a new framework of choice with time in which models of changing preferences can be more easily characterized (Chapter 3). The second part of the thesis is devoted to the theoretical and empirical analysis of economic meaningful behavior that can be represented as if it is the result of decision making with multiple preferences. In particular, I build a model to study the effects of multiple preferences to political behavior (Chapter 4), and run an experimental study to distinguish different motivations behind a potential intrinsic value of holding a decision right (Chapter 5).