The Reversal
Why the burden of proof should rest with in-house delivery, which must hold its own against the market.
Ch. 2–4
The Core Argument
The state is a better principal than an entrepreneur.
A book about Public-Private Partnership (PPP), economic efficiency, client-side competence, and what Section 7 of Germany's Federal Budget Code actually demands of the public sector.
Three Parts of the Argument
Of eight parts in the book, in the order of the manuscript.
What Really Failed
A review of failed PPP projects, read against the grain: as failures of leadership within a model that still holds.
Ch. 8–10The State as Platform
How client-side competence becomes the core capability of modern administration, from infrastructure to digital governance.
Ch. 11–14
The Book
Beyond PPP – Partnership as a Principle of Modern Statehood, from Infrastructure to AI
PPPs fail because of a state culture that places in-house delivery above efficiency.
Baron and Wetzel show that Section 7(2) of Germany's Federal Budget Code (Bundeshaushaltsordnung, BHO) has long required exactly this reversal of the burden of proof. In-house delivery must justify itself once the market demonstrably delivers more efficiently, and that takes no new legislation, only an administration willing to take the existing statute seriously.
The book traces this reversal from classical infrastructure through the digitalisation of public administration to the state's first applications of artificial intelligence, always along the same question: who the state measures itself against when it builds.
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When In-House Delivery Costs More Than Partnership
Why a genuine value-for-money assessment must account for delay, opportunity, and quality costs.
TopicThe AI Dividend the State Never Sees
Generative AI saves the public sector up to 14 billion euro a year, except that money almost never reaches the state.
TopicThe EEG: A Partnership Without a Contract
How a state price guarantee, without a classic PPP contract, pushed the renewables share from 7 to over 50 percent.
TopicWhen Thrift Becomes the Most Expensive Option
The Federal Court of Audit finds a 47 percent cost overrun on major federal IT projects, and one structural cause lies in the thrift principle itself.