Implementation mechanism of full-element coordinated financing for public-welfare water conservancy projects

Public-welfare water conservancy projects in China often suffer market-oriented financing failure because positive externalities spill over while direct financial returns remain inadequate. Based on new institutional economics, this study integrates institutional logic theory, resource dependence theory, transaction cost theory, and the resource-based view into a progressive framework of governance structure, resource bundling, and value capture. A multi-case comparison and systematic text coding of five projects show that strong hybrid governance is the prerequisite for reducing cross-departmental transaction costs and coordinating public-service and market logics; strategically bundling public-welfare projects with operational resources that are valuable, rare, and inimitable converts public-welfare costs into operating revenues; and externalities are internalized through spatial value manifestation and industrial agglomeration. Paired comparisons further indicate that governance strength and operational resource attributes have independent but complementary effects.