Bent Flyvbjerg on Megaprojects

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4.7 • 4.4K Ratings

🗓️ 25 May 2015

⏱️ 64 minutes

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Summary

Bent Flyvbjerg of Oxford University speaks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about the political economy of megaprojects--massive investments of a billion dollars or more in infrastructure or technology. Flyvbjerg argues that such projects consistently end up costing more with smaller benefits than projected and almost always end up with costs that exceed the benefits. Flyvbjerg explores the reasons for the poor predictions and poor performance of giant investment projects and what might be done to improve their effectiveness.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Econ Talk, part of the Library of Economics and Liberty.
0:06.4	I'm your host, Russ Roberts of Stanford University's Hoover Institution.
0:11.0	Our website is econtalk.org where you can subscribe, comment on this podcast, and find links
0:16.3	and other information related to today's conversation.
0:19.0	You'll also find our archives where you can listen to every episode we've ever done going
0:23.2	back to 2006.
0:25.4	Our email address is mailadycontalk.org.
0:27.4	We'd love to hear from you.
0:31.9	Today is May 14, 2015, and my guest is Bent Flupia, BT Professor and Chair of Major
0:39.8	Program Management at Oxford University's Saye Business School.
0:43.9	Bent welcome to Econ Talk.
0:46.2	Thank you very much, Russ.
0:48.0	Our topic for today is mega projects, enormous projects involving infrastructure and other
0:55.4	types of construction.
0:57.4	Let's start, and you've done a great deal of work on that area.
1:02.4	Let's start with just a definition, which is of course somewhat subjective, but what do
1:08.1	you mean by a mega project?
1:11.0	Well, we usually say any project that costs more than a billion dollars and that affects
1:17.7	more than a million people.
1:21.0	And what would be some examples?
1:24.1	So in the US right now, the largest civil mega project is the California high speed rail
1:29.7	line.
	...

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