【2011-11-04】On October 28, 2011, Mr. Gregory Ingram, President of the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, visited Peking University. In the afternoon, at the Peking University, he gave a lecture entitled “Metropolitan Infrastructure and Capital Finance” was held. This topic is the result of a collaborative study between Mr. Gregory Ingram and Mr. Liu Zhi. The teachers and students were interested and actively asked questions and exchanges.
In the lecture, Mr. Ingram first introduced the infrastructure investment structure of various countries in the world, especially developing countries. He divides all infrastructure investments into the following sections: power, telephone, road, mobile phone, water supply, sewage treatment, and more. Through data analysis, he argued that government public investment in developing countries should be invested in infrastructure that is essential to life, such as water supply. And if government investment is concentrated on non-essential items, such as mobile phones, it is equal to a group that does not have such facilities to subsidize the groups that hold these facilities, which is economically inefficient because mobile phones are not Essentials of life. He also pointed out that in addition to direct government investment, other financing institutions (such as the World Bank) and private investment are very beneficial, because these funds can make up the financial gap of the government's direct financing infrastructure.
After the lecture, the teachers and students raised questions about how to define public investment and private investment, and how to identify it as an effective investment. Mr. Ingram answered these questions one by one. It is pointed out that future research directions may include defining the responsibility of urban investment, reducing subsidies and inefficient infrastructure financing, and ensuring that infrastructure financing can be maintained in support of economic growth.
About Gregory Ingram:
Mr. Gregory K. Ingram is President and CEO of the Lincoln Institute for Land Policy and co-director of the International Research Department. Former Director of Business Evaluation of the World Bank, formerly in the Department of Urban Development and Research, and chaired the 1994 World Development Report: Infrastructure Construction and Development. Prior to his appointment to the World Bank, Mr. Ingram was an Associate Professor of Economics at Harvard University. He has published monographs in the fields of urban economics, real estate market, transportation, assessment, infrastructure, environment and development. He holds a Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University, a bachelor's and master's degree in philosophy, politics, and economics from Oxford University, and a bachelor's degree in civil engineering from Swarthmore College.
