Jean Shaoul is Professor of Public Accountability at Manchester Business School, Manchester University, UK, where she specialises in the use of financial information from both the public and private sectors to evaluate public policies and programmes and inform broader economic and social debates, particularly focusing on the distributional consequences of public policies. Her work has included studies of privatisation, including the water industry, the railways and the utilities; public private partnership, particularly in the transport and healthcare sectors; joint ventures between the public and private sectors, including National Air Traffic Services and education; analyses of public expenditure in the UK, financialisation, and the economic causes of the financial and economic crisis. While some of her work has focused on Britain, it is of international relevance as Britain has been an earlier pioneer of these policies and the distributional consequences are generic. As well as researching in this area, she also teaches postgraduate courses in these subjects.  Prof. Shaoul will speak on (i) the rationale, scope, and methods of Public-Private Partnerships in Britain and (ii) an evaluation of Public-Private Partnerships using evidence from Britain and Spain.