Research status and trend of PPP in the US and China: visual knowledge mapping analysis

Public-private-partnership (PPP) model has been widely used in public services and infrastructure projects, and many relevant studies on PPP have emerged. Based on CiteSpace and VOS viewer, this study aims to comprehensively analyze the research status and development trend of the PPP model in China and US. Firstly, the essential statistical characteristics of authors, institutions, and publications are given based on the relevant data collection in Web of Science core collection database. Secondly, the research hotspots and evolution trends of PPP by scholars in China and US are discussed by carrying out keywords co-occurrence analysis and cluster analysis. Finally, from the literature analysis and keyword co-occurrence network over time, the research directions, such as payment risks for the government during the operation period, early termination mechanism and system compensation mechanism, government supervision, and related information, are summarized and forecast, to provide theoretical guidance for the future research on PPP.