A faculty team from the NYU Stern School of Business has recently published an eBook, The Infrastructure Finance Challenge,an analysis of the drivers, challenges and actionable choices for the future of infrastructure finance.

In the book, the authors bring perspectives from a wide range of disciplines, among them corporate finance and capital structure, financial market microstructure and financial institutions, portfolio design, macroeconomics, political economy, the natural environment, economic growth and regulation. The Infrastructure Finance Challenge tackles the infrastructure financing issue by leveraging key concepts rooted in rigorous empirical research.

“Investments in infrastructure – from airports in the U.S. to power plants in Nigeria – could help boost slow and declining growth throughout the world and address challenges in both advanced and emerging economies,” said Peter Henry, dean of NYU Stern. “Our faculty team offers tangible financial solutions in this area that will create value for the global economy and society.”

“In the US, the $1 trillion infrastructure vision under discussion in Washington relies mainly on the private sector,” according Professor Ingo Walter, Seymour Milstein Chair in Finance, Corporate Governance and Ethics Emeritus at NYU Stern. “Until now, there have been few big federal infrastructure ideas since the Eisenhower Interstate Highway initiative of the 1950s. The action has been centered in the private sector and in states and localities with federal co-financing. Tough fiscal and regulatory constraints have retarded promising new projects as well as infrastructure maintenance.”

Walter, the director of the project, continued, “’Crumbling’ is the word most often associated with this sector of the economy. Our book provides a set of viable recommendations for policymakers and the financial community to improve the financial pipeline that connects infrastructure projects to massive pools of investable capital. Equally important, we address some of the clogs that impede the pipeline’s efficiency and resiliency.”

The Stern infrastructure working group is comprised of:

  • Joel Hasbrouck, Kenneth G. Langone Professor of Business Administration and a Professor of Finance
  • Michael Posner, Jerome Kohlberg Professor of Ethics and Finance and a Professor of Business and Society
  • Paul Romer, University Professor of Economics and currently Chief Economist at the World Bank
  • Michael Spence, William R. Berkley Professor of Economics & Business and 2001 Nobel Laureate
  • Paul Tice, Executive in Residence
  • Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh, David S. Loeb Professor of Finance
  • Ingo Walter, Seymour Milstein Professor Emeritus of Finance, Corporate Governance and Ethics
  • Tensie Whelan, Clinical Professor of Business and Society
  • Larry White, Robert Kavesh Professor of Economics
  • David Yermack, Albert Fingerhut Professor of Finance and Business Transformation

The group was awarded a three-year grant from NYU’s Global Institute for Advanced Study (GIAS), the first GIAS grant that Stern has received, in support of their work on the global infrastructure challenge. A complimentary download of the book is available here.

About the Editor

Ingo Walter holds the Seymour Milstein Chair in Finance, Corporate Governance and Ethics Emeritus at the Stern School of Business, New York University. He has been on the faculty since 1970 and has held various leadership positions including Vice Dean for Academic Affairs, Chair of International Business, Chair of Finance, Director of the New York University Salomon Center for the Study of Financial Institutions, Director of the Stern Center for Global Business, and Dean of the Faculty.

About New York University Leonard N. Stern School of Business

New York University Stern School of Business, located in the heart of Greenwich Village, is one of the nation’s premier management education schools and research centers. NYU Stern, whose faculty includes three Nobel Laureates in Economics, offers a broad portfolio of programs at the graduate and undergraduate levels, all of them enriched by the dynamism, energy and deep resources of one of the world’s business capitals. Visit www.stern.nyu.edu and follow NYU Stern on Twitter: @NYUStern.

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