Capabilities

Investments in infrastructure are often said to be “large and lumpy”. They typically require a substantial upfront investment and may have irregular cash inflows that don’t always match well with cash outflows. Long asset lives also put them at risk of “stranding”; new technologies threaten to make existing technologies obsolete. Careful planning is critically important to ensuring the right mix of infrastructure service quality, reliability, and cost in the face of ever-changing demand and supply.

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DHInfrastructure has a long history of collaborating with non-governmental organizations on forward-thinking analysis of infrastructure regulation and financing. The publications below are a sample of some of the content we have authored or co-authored with US-based and international NGOs.

Investments in infrastructure are often said to be “large and lumpy”. They typically require a substantial upfront investment and may have irregular cash inflows that don’t always match well with cash outflows. Long asset lives also put them at risk of “stranding”; new technologies threaten to make existing technologies obsolete. Careful planning is critically important to ensuring the right mix of infrastructure service quality, reliability, and cost in the face of ever-changing demand and supply.

Economic and financial analyses are critical components of any investment decision. Public sector stakeholders will want to know whether an infrastructure project has net benefits for the economy as a whole (economic analysis). Private sector stakeholders will want to know what the service will cost, and whether it offers a positive return on investment (financial analysis). DHInfrastructure has extensive experience conducting economic and financial analysis for a wide range of stakeholders, as well as advising on good practices for developing project finance models and economic cost-benefit analysis (CBA).

DHInfrastructure is one of only a few economic consultancies with a firm grasp of both of the two main global traditions of regulating infrastructure service provision: Regulation by statute, and regulation by contract. Public private partnerships (PPPs) are a form of regulation by contract and are successfully used in many jurisdictions to attract private sector financing and expertise to infrastructure projects.

We help policymakers plan for the long-term evolution of infrastructure sectors and help regulators implement those policies.

Infrastructure service delivery involves many potentially competing interests. Sometimes, the delicate balance between these interests is disrupted and disputes arise. We bring economic regulatory expertise to such disputes, serving as expert witnesses on arbitrations between private parties, or between public and private parties to a contract.

We work with regulators, consumer advocates, utilities, and investors to assess cost-recovery and ensure that tariffs or “rates” (as they are called in the United States) are sufficient to ensure the long-term sustainability of infrastructure services.