When individuals pay directly for infrastructure, there is a greater chance of resistance, especially if the quality of the operations does not seem commensurate with the cost involved. If the project is paid for through taxation, the link between the form of payment and the specific infrastructure is less direct and therefore less likely to be seen by the public as something to reject.
How infrastructure has been paid for in the past influences perceptions. For example, in many countries the power generation industry has a long history of private financing. As a result, users have almost no resistance to paying for this service. Applying a toll to a previously "free" road, however, can be easily resisted. This resistance has been one of the impediments to the global shift of procuring much infrastructure, especially social infrastructure, using private finance.
The complexity of human behavior is beyond the scope of this Report, but a great deal of research-such as Kahneman and Tversky's Prospect Theory1-has demonstrated that people value gains and losses differently even if their choices have the same economic end result.