Infrastructure's Stubborn Spatiality and its Maturing Financialisation

Abstract

The paper reports on an Australia Research Council funded project which examines the ways private infrastructure finance is structured within infrastructure deals. This paper draws on a series of interviews with investors and service providers in North America, the UK and Australia. It charts the development of private infrastructure financing post-GFC and examines the ways organisational, capital and regulatory structures have evolved and been transformed. The argument uses a Chamberlinian monopolistic approach to the rise of the infrastructure financing market and argues the proposition that the sector has now arrived at a relatively mature market structure position. That said, the article reveals that the sector’s regulatory regime remains heavily informalised with its nature and direction determined largely by private and non-disclosed arrangements.

Keywords: Infrastructure; privatisation; financialisation; market structure

JEL Classification: D43; E62; G32; H41; H54; R51