More than a hundred hydropower dams have already been built in the Amazon basin and numerous proposals for further dam constructions are under consideration. The accumulated negative environmental effects of existing dams and proposed dams, if constructed, will trigger massive hydrophysical and...

More than a hundred hydropower dams have already been built in the Amazon basin and numerous proposals for further dam constructions are under consideration. The accumulated negative environmental effects of existing dams and proposed dams, if constructed, will trigger massive hydrophysical and...

With Albert O. Hirschman, project management scholarship has what it lacks the most: an eminent intellectual and social scientist who has thought long and hard about project management, and especially the management of large transformative projects. Cass Sunstein, co-author of Nudge and a key...

With a point of departure in the concept "uncomfortable knowledge," this article presents a case study of how the American Planning Association (APA) deals with such knowledge. APA was found to actively suppress publicity of malpractice concerns and bad planning in order to sustain a boosterish...

Cost overruns in transport infrastructure projects know no geographical limits; overruns are a global phenomenon. Nevertheless, the size of cost overruns varies with location. In the Netherlands, cost overruns appear to be smaller compared to the rest of the world. This paper tests whether Dutch...

This paper examines three independent explanatory variables and their relation with cost overrun in order to decide whether this is different for Dutch infrastructure projects compared to worldwide findings. The three independent variables are project type (road, rail, and fixed link projects),...

Paradoxically, big is not scaleable. But modular is. Energy mega-projects are pursued in order to deliver a big step-up in capacity ahead of demand. Moreover, big is thought to generate economies of scale. However, Instead of making good on these promises, big investments typically fail —...

The suggestion to make a Chinese translation of Megaprojects and Risk: An Anatomy of Ambition was particularly welcome. The book is about how to plan and deliver megaprojects in ways that secure successful outcomes. Megaprojects are highly risky and often go wrong, even in China. Some have gone...

The paper argues that if you want to get cost estimates right for large capital investment projects, you need to unlearn conventional cost forecasting, with its century-long record of getting cost estimates wrong. Instead you need to learn behavioral science, because behavior, and not artifacts,...

How should government and business solve big problems? In bold leaps or in many smaller moves? We show that bespoke, one-off projects are prone to poorer outcomes than projects built on a repeatable platform. Repeatable projects are cheaper, faster, and scale at lower risk of failure. We compare...