Government credit risk assessment of non-profit public-private partnership projects in China based on the IVHFSs-IFAHP model

To reduce the financial pressure on local governments and improve operational efficiency, the Chinese government has introduced the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) model for the development of infrastructure. However, the government credit risk generated by PPP projects may damage private and public interests. Therefore, this study evaluates the government credit risks of non-profit PPP projects by using a systematic and rounded model that employs interval value hesitant fuzzy sets and intuitionistic fuzzy hierarchical analysis (IVHFS-IFAHP). This study employs the perspective of the private sector to establish risk index systems using the dimensions of Wuli-Shili-Renli (WSR) methodology. IFAHP is used to collect expert opinions for the comparison of the importance of the indexes and establish an intuitionistic fuzzy judgment matrix in order to calculate the weight of each index. IVHFSs are adopted to obtain the scores of the indexes coupled with the results acquired by IFAHP to produce comprehensive scores of the indexes. The feasibility and practicability of this method were verified empirically. This study provides an effective method for the private sector to evaluate the government credit risks of non-profit PPP projects and provides a reference for participation in PPP projects.