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The limited understanding of public–private partnerships (P3s) for transportation infrastructure finance has been generally attributed to a lack of data. The more fundamental question of how P3 data are utilized in the literature is more relevant and critical, but remains unclear. This study investigates this question by examining the linkages between research objectives and data characteristics through a meta-analysis of infrastructure P3 studies using multinomial regressions. It analyzes 95 empirical studies that adopt actual data, selected from a P3 research database that includes over 345 studies and are classified into five categories including performance, contract, risk, value for money, and institutional factors. Results show that the case studies are less frequently utilized to understand P3s' institutional issues compared to those that focus on P3s' performance or VFM. Survey data are more frequently used to study P3 contracts rather than issues related to P3 project risk. We highlight the need for policy-makers to require continuing disclosure of P3 performance for validating the effectiveness of the procurement model and to improve the practice. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]