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As per the African Union's 2016 prescription, most new rail projects in Africa are greenfield standard gauge railways (SGR) that cost billions of dollars, which, if successfully implemented and well run, can offer better services than road transport. However, to be viable, SGR investments must have adequate freight traffic, provide reliable services, and charge much lower tariffs than the trucking industry. This means that SGRs will very likely have to be subsidized, which most African governments cannot afford to do. Based on the rail economics for SGRs, this article argues that it would be more feasible for most African countries to invest in upgrading and expanding brownfield rail infrastructure in the short-to-medium term. Using Kenya's Nairobi-Naivasha SGR as a case study, this article contextualizes and critically analyzes the greenfield vs. brownfield rail infrastructure debate that underpins Africa's railway renaissance and demonstrates that SGR investments may not necessarily be the most feasible rail projects for developing African economies. Keywords: Africa's Railway Renaissance, Railways, Kenya, Introduction Since the early 2000s, countries, regional economic communities (RECs), and the African Union have been planning and implementing projects to improve Africa's rail network. As a result, ambitious new [...]

This article examines Cambodia's backing of China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Having explored bilateral historical ties, the author concludes that Cambodia has pursued a bandwagoning policy with China for most of its post-colonial period since 1953. At present, Cambodia's bandwagoning policy with China has been manifested in the former's support of the latter's initiative. It begs a question as to why the kingdom has enthusiastically supported it. The article elucidates the motives behind Cambodia's bandwagoning policy on BRI applying John Spanier's three level of analytical framework. First, on the systemic level, it argues that China's bid to expand its influence, the change of balance of power in Southeast Asia, and the clean competition for influence between China and Japan in the Mekong Region have affected Cambodia's policy decision on the BRI. Second, at the nation-state level of analysis, Cambodia perceives BRI as another funding source of infrastructure projects, and a means to achieve its policy goal of becoming an economic hub in the region and to whip up domestic support of the ruling party. Finally, on the decision-making level, the backing of the BRI may stem from Prime Minister Hun Sen's pragmatic views of how to sustain his rule over the country. He might have viewed that economic growth would help to strengthen his ruling. The analysis concludes by identifying some negative repercussions Cambodia has encountered as a result of her support of the BRI., Author(s): Thearith Leng [sup.1] Author Affiliations: (Aff1) Mekong Centre for Strategic Studies, Asian Vision Institute, , Phnom Penh, Cambodia Introduction China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), or sometimes referred to [...]

Although most of the tax competition literature focuses on the provision of local public services to households, several papers analyze tax competition when capital taxes are used to finance local public services provided to businesses, examining the conditions under which such services are provided efficiently, under-provided, or over-provided. In addition, several prominent observers have noted that 'benefit-related' business taxation is desirable on both efficiency and equity grounds and argued that such taxation should take the form of a tax based on production, such as an origin-based value-added tax. We evaluate this contention in this paper, comparing the relative efficiency properties of these alternative business taxes. Our simulation results suggest that under many, but not all, circumstances it is more efficient to finance business public services with an origin-based production tax rather than a source-based capital tax. Keywords: business public services, infrastructure, tax competition, capital taxes, production taxes, origin-based VAT JEL Codes: H41, H42, H21, HU, I. INTRODUCTION Most of the literature on interjurisdictional tax competition focuses on the provision of local public services to households financed with taxes on mobile capital; for reviews of this [...]

I. Introduction DETERIORATING INFRASTRUCTURE CONDITIONS IN THE UNITED STATES beg for an increase in funding, which, due to the current economic conditions, would be difficult to attain without the help [...]

Benefit-cost analysis (BCA) is a common approach used by public agencies to decide among a set of alternative investments. Such analysis, however, is not structured to handle complex problems with multi-level decisions, such as distributing a limited rehabilitation fund among a large number of infrastructure assets, considering alternative rehabilitation strategies and life cycle analysis over multiple years. This paper, therefore, extends the current BCA to the complex infrastructure fund allocation problem. It first reviews the origins of BCA and then proposes a microeconomic-based heuristic approach that optimizes decisions by achieving an equilibrium state in which fair and equitable allocations are made where the marginal benefit per dollar is equalized for all asset categories. Using a case study of 800 building components, the enhanced BCA proved to be able to arrive at optimum solutions, supported with credible economic basis, and as such, can efficiently justify the spending of public money. Key words: infrastructure, rehabilitation, renewal, benefit-cost, microeconomics, fund allocation, optimization, equilibrium, marginal utility. L'analyse couts-benefices (ACB) est une methode couramment utilisee par les agences publiques pour choisir une option parmi un ensemble de solutions d'investissement. Cependant, une telle analyse n'est pas concue pour permettre d'apprehender des problemes complexes impliquant des prises de decisions a plusieurs niveaux, telles que la distribution de fonds de rehabilitation limites a un grand nombre d'infrastructures, l'examen de strategies de rehabilitations alternatives et l'analyse des cycles de vie sur plusieurs annees. Le present article etend donc l'ACB au probleme complexe d'allocation de fonds d'infrastructure. Il examine dans un premier temps les origines de l'ACB, puis propose une approche heuristique de type microeconomique qui permet d'optimiser les decisions en etablissant un equilibre consistant en des allocations justes et equitables sont determinees, dans lesquelles le benefice marginal par dollar est le meme pour toutes les categories d'elements d'infrastructure. A l'aide d'une etude de cas realisee sur 800 composants de batiment, l'ACB amelioree a montre qu'elle permettait d'aboutir a des solutions optimales, s'appuyant sur des bases economiques realistes, et qu'elle pouvait en tant que telle justifier efficacement les depenses de l'argent public. [Traduit par la Redaction] Mots-cles: infrastructure, rehabilitation, renouvellement, couts-benefices, microeconomique, allocation de fonds, optimisation, equilibre, utilite marginale., Introduction Benefit-cost analysis (BCA) basically evaluates the benefits and costs associated with one or several investment options to select the best alternative (Thoft-Christensen 2012; Fraser and Jewkes 2013). An investment [...]