Megaprojects and Risk: An Anatomy of Ambition

Extract

Megaprojects and Risk: An Anatomy of Ambition. By Bent Flyvbjerg, Nils Bruzelius, and Werner Rothengatter. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003. 218p. $55.00 cloth, $20.00 paper.

Multibillion dollar infrastructural projects, or megaprojects such as the Channel Tunnel, the Øresund bridge between Denmark and Sweden, the Hong Kong and Denver airports, or many high-speed rail links in Europe, continue to be built in record numbers despite poor performance and colossal losses. Why? The authors provide ample evidence to substantiate their claim that such projects are systematically misrepresented in public and private deliberations because many of the participants in the process have incentives to underestimate costs, overestimate revenues, undervalue environmental impact, and overvalue economic development effects.