7.6 /10 1 Votes
Country United States Publication date 2003 Originally published 2003 OCLC 50271600 | 3.8/5 Goodreads Language English Media type Print, e-book Genre Non-fiction | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Subject Economics, infrastructure Publisher Cambridge University Press Similar Bent Flyvbjerg books, Project management books | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Megaprojects and Risk: An Anatomy of Ambition is a 2003 book by Bent Flyvbjerg, Nils Bruzelius, and Werner Rothengatter, published by Cambridge University Press. According to chief economist and director of transportation policy at Infrastructure Management Group, Inc., Porter K. Wheeler, "this book makes an important contribution to understanding the infrastructure development process worldwide, with focus on megaprojects."
Overview
"Megaprojects" is the term applied to multibillion-dollar infrastructure developments such as massive dams and bridges, and to elaborate railways and highways. The "megaprojects paradox" is that more of these projects are being implemented, but such projects typically perform very poorly, often with substantial cost overruns and market shortfalls.
Chapters two to four examine the Channel Tunnel, which opened in 1994 at a cost of 4.7 billion pounds following cost-overruns of 80% which caused several companies to nearly go bankrupt. Denver International Airport which cost $5 billion, opened in 1995 following a 200 per cent cost overrun, and passenger traffic in 1995 was only half that expected. There were also problems with Hong Kong's Chek Lap Kok Airport, opened in 1998, which had low revenues and affected Hong Kong's economy in a negative way.
According to authors, the reason for these poor performances is that many of the participants in the process have incentives to underestimate costs, overestimate revenues, undervalue environmental impact, and overvalue economic development effects. The central problems are lack of accountability and inappropriate risk sharing which can be improved by reforming the institutional arrangements of decision making and to institute accountability at the project development and evaluation stages.