LIST OF TABLES, FIGURES AND BOXES  i

FOREWORD  iii

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS  v

ABBREVIATIONS  vi

1. OVERVIEW: INVESTING BETTER, INVESTING MORE  01

1.1 The Paradox of Infrastructure  02

1.2 Investing Better  05

1.3 Raising Infrastructure Investment to Close the Development Gap  09

Box A: Impact of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) and Its Implications for Infrastructure Priorities  11

2. WHY DEVELOPING ECONOMIES SHOULD INVEST MORE IN INFRASTRUCTURE: A MACROECONOMIC AND GROWTH PERSPECTIVE  15

2.1 East Asia's Experience  17

2.2 Growth Impact of Infrastructure  21

2.3 Policy Discussions and Limitation of Study  22

3. RAISING ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL RETURNS THROUGH DESIGN AND ENGINEERING  25

3.1 Designing for Connectivity, Commercial and Civic Uses: West Kowloon Station in Hong Kong, China  27

3.2 Optimizing Through Scale and Automation: Pavagada Solar Park in Karnataka, India  29

3.3 Integrating Infrastructure and Raising Benefits  30

4. MANAGING INFRASTRUCTURE COST  31

4.1 Benchmarking Road and Water Infrastructure Construction Costs  33

4.2 Why Is It Important to Keep Costs Down?  34

4.3 What Causes High Infrastructure Construction Costs?  35

Box B: Reducing Infrastructure Cost Overruns in India  36

5. PLANNING FOR THE FUTURE AND AVOIDING STRANDED ASSETS  37

5.1 What Are Stranded Assets?  39

5.2 Climate-Related Physical and Transition Risks  40

5.3 Moving Toward Paris Alignment Is Important but We Need to Consider All Measures to Avoid Stranded Assets  41

5.4 Measuring Stranding Risk and Avoiding Poor Investment Choices  45

6. MOBILIZING FINANCE: RECENT TRENDS AND GIVING A STRONGER PUSH TOWARD SUSTAINABLE INVESTMENT  47

6.1 The Sustainability Challenge  49

6.2 Promising Trends  49

6.3 Motivations for Sustainable Investment  52

6.4 Giving Sustainable Investment a Bigger Push  53

7. BALANCING INVESTMENT WITH DEBT SUSTAINABILITY  55

7.1 Higher Public Debts but Generally Healthy Ratings  57

7.2 Specific Debt Vulnerabilities in Some Smaller Economies  59

7.3 New Trends in Borrowing  60

7.4 Improving Policy Frameworks, Mitigating Against Macroeconomic Imbalances  61

Box C: Investing in High-Debt Countries: Two Case Studies  63

8. INFRASTRUCTURE FINANCE MARKET OVERVIEW (2019-2020)  65

8.1 Decline in Private-Sector Infrastructure Activity — More Incidental Than Structural  67

8.2 Asia on the Path to More Sustainable Energy  70

8.3 Investing Better With Innovative Capital Structures  72

8.3.1 Institutional Investors — Pension Funds  72

8.3.2 Bond Finance  73

8.3.3 Asset Securitization  74

Box D: Preliminary Analysis of Rising Protectionism in the Renewable Energy Sector  75

9. COUNTRY WRITE-UPS  79

9.1 Bangladesh  81

9.2 China  85

9.3 India  91

9.4 Indonesia  95

9.5 Pakistan  99

9.6 Philippines  103

9.7 Russia  107

9.8 Turkey  111

APPENDIXES  115

Appendix 1: Regression Framework (Chapter 2)  115

Appendix 2: Literature Review of Some Meta-Analysis Studies on Environment, Social and Governance and Corporate Financial Performance (Chapter 6)  116

Appendix 3: Additional Acknowledgments  118

REFERENCES  119

ENDNOTES  125