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During the late Qing Dynasty, Western colonists plundered and divided the land as concession where they consequently built European and American architectures. These architectures, such as concession garden architectures, are a result of relevant cultural exchange. Thus, concession garden architectural culture should be studied. In this study, the historical records of the concession and the concession garden in the late Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China were examined on the basis of the representative architectures of Shanghai and Tianjin in China. The origin, classification, characteristic, and development of the concession garden architecture were regarded as the starting point, and the characteristics of the garden architecture in different regions were discovered. Further insights into the development of conservation concession garden buildings in China and the use of modern landscape architectures were provided, and new perspectives for studies on concession landscape architectures were presented through an in-depth understanding and analysis of concession landscape architectures.

Concession contracts provide a mechanism for transferring the traditional public sector client roles of market research, project appraisal, project financing, operation and maintenance, and revenue generation associated with power station projects to the private sector organizations, formerly only responsible for turnkey design and construction. The recent research work undertaken in the Project Management Group, UMIST, has developed and validated a mechanism for the rapid appraisal of concession contracts. A case study example is presented to illustrate the significant features of the procurement of power projects using concession contracts.

This study aims to examine the problems of the concession system that Macao has long-term adopted to regulate its gaming industry and discuss alternatives.

Theoretical reflection was used to provide qualitatively different insights about governmental supervision of the gaming industry.

Two options for reform are proposed: (1) replace the concession system with a licensing system that does not restrict the number of concessionaires or the period of concession or (2) adopt a modified form of the concession system that changes the number of concessionaires, period of concessions and methods for selecting concessionaires.

This study’s results have implications for the Macao government and other gaming jurisdictions in Asia.

This study provides a comprehensive examination of the concession system for governmental supervision of the gaming industry.

Airport economics literature has recently included the supply of concession services among the factors that might affect airport pricing. In particular, there is only little empirical analysis on whether: (i) the supply of airport concession services can stimulate the demand for travel (two-side complementarity) and (ii) the demand for airport concession services is independent of traveling activities (welfare neutrality). In this chapter, we survey papers that have addressed two-side complementarity and welfare neutrality in airport concessions. Our goal is to discuss the different assumptions that have shaped the models and to collect evidences, facts and empirical findings that may support analytical hypotheses. We argue that the notions of two-side complementarity and welfare neutrality might be interrelated – especially when airports invest in concessions in the area accessible to non-passengers. Welfare gains should be assessed on a case by case basis, depending on the type of airport in terms of ownership, size (and the relative mass of connecting passengers compared to origin–destination passengers), and the source of concession revenues. Our arguments might be particularly relevant to policy makers who need to understand (i) whether the supply of concessions reduces or increases the benefits of airport (aviation) price regulation and (ii) whether the effective control of market power may require the regulation of the prices of both the businesses.

State leaders’ decision-making calculus is often attributed to external factors. The political arena, international community pressure and a country’s military stance all take centre stage in the analysis of national security decisions. Little weight is given to personal aspects of a leader’s psyche in explaining these decisions; this is true to the bulk of the research regarding this topic. This study theorizes and tests a positive link between Israeli leaders’ combat military experience and their propensity to enter into ‘peacemaking’ decisions namely, peace talks, cease fires and unilateral withdrawals. This research uses a new database comprising all peacemaking decision points in Israel’s history, looking at the pressure put on a leader from outside factors and his military experience to explain the decision taken. It finds a strong significant link between combat experience and the tendency to enter in a peacemaking decision with little regard to ideological affiliation, shedding a new light on Israeli politicians from both sides of the aisle.

Between 1840s and 1940s, 27 occidental concessions have been created in several cities in China which represented difficult signs and memories for Chinese. Nowadays, these territories are experiencing a joint phenomenon of heritagization and tourismification which makes them experimental theaters for modern urban life and identity. Taking the former concessions of Tianjin as place study, the purpose of this study is to analyze the role of the heritage and tourism in the former concessions in city branding and more specifically the actors, approaches and products of this phenomenon.

This research draws on the comparison and analysis of two place studies in China. The authors base their analysis on semi-structured interviews in Chinese with previously identified stakeholders. In all, 20 individuals, including developers, public authority representatives, business owners, academics and conservation association members, were interviewed. This research was completed, updated and triangulated by content analysis of Web-based materials; official documents such as urban plans, guidelines and urban and tourism strategies collected during the fieldwork, as well as non-intrusive spatial observations of the concession and its various developments.

The results of this study show that the heritage in the former concessions has become an attractive tool for the city branding through tourism development, often led by the public actors with the participation of private entrepreneurs.

This study looks at the hybrid dimensions of the former concessions in China. It provides a better understanding of the co-action of heritage and tourism in the processes of territorial rehabilitation, which contributes to both the practitioners and researchers in this domain.

Build-operate-transfer (BOT) contracts are widely used in the construction and operation of charging piles for new energy vehicles worldwide and stipulate that governments grant charging pile operators franchises for a certain period of time to invest in the construction and operation of the charging piles. The charging piles are then transferred to governments when the concession expires. To encourage charging pile operators to build and operate charging piles, governments usually provide two kinds of subsidies, namely construction and operating subsidies.

The authors establish a typical game model to study the optimal BOT contract between a government and a charging pile operator and their preferences for the two kinds of subsidies.

First, the authors show that there are substitution and complementarity effects between the concession period and the subsidy level. Second, the operator prefers the construction subsidy (operating subsidy) when the additional operating cost is low (high). The government prefers the operating subsidy (construction subsidy) when consumer sensitivity to the number of charging piles is low (high) and the concession period is short or long (moderate). Finally, the adjusted joint subsidy can not only improve social welfare but also that the charging pile operator can obtain the same profit as under the operating subsidy at a lower subsidy amount.

This work develops the first analytical model to study two subsidies in the construction and operation of charging piles and investigate the optimal BOT contract and subsidy preferences. The insights are compelling not only for the charging pile operator but also for policymakers in practice from a circular economy perspective.

Increased economic activity in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) has given rise to increased demand for port development. Given the often scarce availability of national public funding, port institutional reform programmes have been implemented to pave the way for the inclusion of external port investors. Notwithstanding this fact, some sub-Saharan African Governments remain institutionally locked into the notion that state-owned enterprises remain an appropriate vehicle for port terminal operations. This, despite the fact that terminal operational concessions globally and within the continent of Africa are increasingly being managed by global terminal operators. Given this context, this study aims to evaluate different port valuation and funding strategies. Two research questions form the core of this research: what is the financial value of a concession? What is the most cost advantageous funding strategy? The methodology is applied to the development of a two-berth container terminal in SSA.

After reviewing a range of financial valuation and funding techniques, the study presents valuation and funding model applicability-fit tests. Thereafter, a suitable valuation technique is selected and applied to the case study providing a concession valuation. Different funding strategies are applied to the valuation model to determine the cost implications of each funding instrument given the local context and institutional constraints applicable to SSA. Finally, the study discusses the significance of the results to potential SSA port investors by highlighting the impact of each funding approach on key financial metrics.

The study presents a range of financial investment appraisal results for the case study concession in consideration of four specific funding strategies. The highest concession valuation could be attributed to a higher debt ratio as a principal funding strategy. In addition, this funding approach (100% debt) realised the shortest payback period and the highest internal rate of return values. The authors, however, maintain that the optimal funding strategy for a concession depends ultimately on the financial goals of the investor.

This research makes a contribution to the existing literature on port finance and development by presenting a structured approach to the evaluation of the valuation and funding techniques, which can be used in terminal development subject to the specific local context and institutional constraints (in this case applicable to SSA). The study provides practical insight into the potential cost of the considered terminal concession for private or public sector participants and a view of the most cost advantageous funding strategy available for interested investors.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a comprehensive approach to the valuation of an infrastructure concession right and quantitative risk management projects in the People's Republic of China.

The paper outlines a methodology, incorporating an economic model to appraise the dynamic value and risk of concession investment in the context of the design of concession contracts.

The framework of the study simulates the present value of net cash flow and identifies probability with different parameters in concession contracts as a way to establish a correlation between parameters and net present value distribution. Moreover, the paper uses the technique of value‐at‐risk to set up an economic model to appraise the dynamic value and risk of a concession investment and analyse the key issues in the concession contracts design phase.

It is difficult to estimate precisely the distribution of parameters in the model. In particular, estimating shortfalls in the rate of return of the concession project, the appreciation rate of the future operating cash flow and the market rate of return all have significant impact on the results.

This study frames examines the concession rights mode in a traffic infrastructure construction project and provides potential developers and potential host governments with a reasoned approach to evaluating risk and capital investment in potential concession projects.

The paper offers insights into the risk management, financing and valuation of infrastructure concession rights concerning the Guangshen Freeway in China.

The purpose of this paper is to develop compensation mechanisms against risks factors that impact private party’s costs in concession-based projects as a basis for minimizing failure rate of concession contracts.

The study extended earlier work on the factors that impact private party’s costs in concession-based projects by developing compensation mechanisms against the risks factors. It commenced with semi-structured face-to-face interviews which were launched with different stakeholders organizations that had been involved in PPP contracts in the Southwestern Nigeria. Responses from the interview were analyzed using interpretative phenomenal analysis via ATLAS.ti6/7. The mechanisms identified from literature review were assessed through structured questionnaire which were administered on professionals selected from governmental-based organizations (ministries, agencies, corporations/parastatals, etc.), private developers/concessionaires, law firms, banks among others, using the respondent-driven sampling technique. The robustness of the quantitative data was achieved by including the initial respondents to the interview in the questionnaire survey. The quantitative data were analyzed using percentile for better understanding of the flexibility between “most” and “more” preferred mechanisms. The criterion for the selection of appropriate mechanism(s) for the factors was based on minimum average of 20.0 percent (the ratio of maximum percentage (100 percent) of the respondents to total number of variables) suggesting the five identified mechanisms. The results in both cases of qualitative and quantitative assessments were compared. Based on the convergences of the findings, preferred compensation mechanisms were developed against concession contract risk factors.

Options of mechanisms were developed against specific investment risks that are consequent to the defaults of the public party in PPP contracts. The findings indicate that the mechanisms in extant literature with respect to administration of traditional models are relevant for PPPs. The study, however, identified new concepts, including “compensative” “zero compensation,” “equitable sharing” and “adjustment of concession period,” which are suitable in specific cases of PPP contracts.

The study contributes to the body of knowledge on mechanisms for improving PPP project performance. Moreover, insights were provided on mechanisms that satisfy private investor in case of specific risk factors investigated. The findings are therefore expected to guide private party in the preparation of concession contract package that minimizes investments risks and thereby attracting more private investors both from local and international environments. The findings of the study would also contribute to the body of information for documenting standard conditions of concession contract in Nigeria.

Studies on critical performance factors on PPP were extended by developing compensation mechanisms against the investment risks that impact private party’s cost.