# Complexity and Robustness of Public–Private Partnership Networks

## TL;DR

This paper analyzes the structure and robustness of public-private partnership networks in China, revealing insights into their complexity and implications for policy.

## Contribution

The study introduces a PPP shareholder network analysis in China, revealing its small-world behavior and vulnerability to targeted attacks.

## Key findings

- The PPP shareholder network shows small-world behavior and a heavy-tailed degree distribution.
- Targeted attacks, especially degree-based and betweenness-based, are more effective in disrupting the network.
- The network has a hierarchical geographic structure with Beijing as the central hub.

## Abstract

Public–private partnership (PPP) has been increasingly imported to deliver infrastructure and public services around the world. As an emerging public procurement mode, PPP has drawn considerable attention both from academy and industry. We construct a PPP shareholder network of China and analyze its topological complexity, robustness, and geographic structure. We find that the PPP shareholder network exhibits small-world behavior and a heavy-tailed degree distribution. Using multiple centrality measures, we investigate the network robustness under various attack strategies. The results show that the targeted attack destroys the network more efficiently than the random attack, especially the degree-based and betweenness-based attacks. For geographic topology, it exhibits a hierarchical spatial structure in which Beijing is the central hub and provincial capitals are regional centers. Our research has significant implications for policy-making to improve supervision for enterprises involved in PPP projects.