Measuring synergy effects of a Public Social Private Partnership (PSPP) project

This article applies the Cobb/Douglas production function to measure synergy effects of a Public Social Private Partnership (PSPP) project. Following a short overview of the literature on Public Private Partnership and in particular on Public Social Private Partnership the microeconomic approach of the Cobb/Douglas production function is presented which can be interpreted in this context as a generalised Nash solution of cooperative games and opens up the possibility of allocating the synergy effects to the partners of a PSPP project. The Cobb/Douglas production function is at first briefly analysed with regard to its assumptions, implications and consequences, and then applied to the PSPP project Anschub.de that was initiated by the Bertelsmann Stiftung. The empirical analysis uses real data and is based on a survey on the project cooperation partners whereby the resources and budget contributions spent are investigated. With the help of these budget contributions it is possible to determine relative success variables or synergy effects for the partners. & 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.