The implementation of a public investment project is not always preceded by a specific feasibility study. Nevertheless, the legislator has urged administrations in different ways and at different times to provide themselves with appropriate pre-assessment methods and tools of cost effectiveness. In the last decade, different guideline manuals have been released on the evaluation of public projects, both in Italy and within the EU. These manuals address the subject at different levels and scales, but they hardly ever become operational tools in the hands of public decision makers for evaluating the financial and economic viability of proposals. IRPET-SdF is a Web application devised to offer the public manager a clear and user-friendly instrument for the pre-feasibility analysis of public investments. This tool allows to evaluate the viability of projects financed with different combinations of sources, from public funding to public-private partnership schemes. IRPET-SdF combines the virtues of simplicity of use, methodological rigour and high level of detail. The structure of the Web application provides for all the necessary steps to organize an accurate cost-benefit analysis, from the description of the investment’s qualitative and quantitative characteristics to the development of demand for infrastructure-related services, the financial analysis and, at last, the economic analysis thought the appropriate fiscal and market corrections of financial flows. As regards the economic analysis, the Web application allows the user to obtain an estimate of the external territorial effects (externalities) of the implemented intervention. The calculation of externalities is based on algorithms specifically designed for each type of infrastructure. The analysis is partly performed drawing on IRPET’s well-established experience with multi-regional input-out models.
The Web application is available at the following link:
Related publications
Projects generating revenues for culture and heritage conservation
Calculation of aids compatible with the internal market
Article 53 of Regulation 651/2014 (Aid for culture and heritage conservation) establishes the conditions for aids to cultural and heritage conservation, which must be compatible with the internal market, in accordance with Article 107(3) of the Treaty, and exempt from the notification requirement of Article 108(3) of the Treaty. These provisions set a ceiling and an operating limit for this kind of investment aids. The investment threshold corresponds to the difference between the investment’s admissible costs and operating profits (the infrastructure manager may maintain a level of reasonable profit over the reference period); the operating threshold is equal to the amount necessary to cover the operating losses and a reasonable profit over the relevant period.
The tool (accompanied by the manual) is in Excel format and allows to calculate the reasonable profit and, consequently the maximum allowable aid, starting from the information on the investment and running costs introduced by the user.
Downloadable attachments:
Manual
Excel tool
