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metastable comments on Open thread, August 19-25, 2013 - Less Wrong Discussion
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I'd like to hear more about possibilities in China, if you've got more. Everything I've read lately suggests that they've extensively overbuilt their infrastructure, much of it with bad debt, in the rush to create urban jobs. And it seems like they're teetering on the edge of a land-development bubble, and that urbanization has already started slowing. But they do get rights-of-way trivially, as you say, and they're geographically a lot more like the US than Europe.
(The Money Illusion would like to dispute this view of China. Not sure how much to trust Sumner on this but he strikes me as generally smart.)
Mr. Sumner has some pretty clear systemic assumptions toward government spending on infrastructure. This article seems to agree with both aspects, without conflicting with either, however.
The Chinese government /is/ opening up new opportunities for non-Chinese companies to provide infrastructure, in order to further cover land development. But they're doing so at least in part because urbanization is slowing and these investments are perceived locally as higher-risk to already risk-heavy banks, and foreign investors are likely to be more adventurous or to lack information.