Explaining Uncertainty Avoidance in Megaprojects: Resource Constraints, Strategic Behaviour, or Institutions?
TL;DR: In this article, the authors ask why uncertainties are avoided in dominant megaproject practice while planning scholars are increasingly advocating adaptive planning and uncertainty acknowledgement, and they propose a no...
Abstract: This paper asks why uncertainties are avoided in dominant megaproject practice while planning scholars are increasingly advocating adaptive planning and uncertainty acknowledgement. We propose a no...
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36 citations
TL;DR: Hillier and Healey as mentioned in this paper reviewed a planning theory book and found that it is quite an interesting time to be reviewing a plan theory book, because what is currently o'...
Abstract: Jean Hillier & Patsy Healey (Eds), Aldershot: Ashgate (2010), ISBN 978-0-7546-7254-8 (hb) It is quite an interesting time to be reviewing a planning theory book. That is because what is currently o...
32 citations
Posted Content•
TL;DR: In this article, the authors present state-of-the-art research on the decision-making processes in the deliverance of mega-projects, large infrastructure projects for the transportation of people and/or goods.
Abstract: This comprehensive and accessible Handbook presents state-of-the-art research on the decision-making processes in the deliverance of mega-projects – large infrastructure projects for the transportation of people and/or goods.
16 citations
TL;DR: In this paper , the authors examine the main ideological landscapes behind the Belgrade waterfront regeneration, illustrated by two projects, City on the Water and Belgrade Waterfront, by collecting 65 articles from the daily press and presenting their statements to depict their positions, viewpoints, interests, and specific value frameworks.
2 citations
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Book•
01 Jan 1990TL;DR: Douglass C. North as discussed by the authors developed an analytical framework for explaining the ways in which institutions and institutional change affect the performance of economies, both at a given time and over time.
Abstract: Continuing his groundbreaking analysis of economic structures, Douglass North develops an analytical framework for explaining the ways in which institutions and institutional change affect the performance of economies, both at a given time and over time. Institutions exist, he argues, due to the uncertainties involved in human interaction; they are the constraints devised to structure that interaction. Yet, institutions vary widely in their consequences for economic performance; some economies develop institutions that produce growth and development, while others develop institutions that produce stagnation. North first explores the nature of institutions and explains the role of transaction and production costs in their development. The second part of the book deals with institutional change. Institutions create the incentive structure in an economy, and organisations will be created to take advantage of the opportunities provided within a given institutional framework. North argues that the kinds of skills and knowledge fostered by the structure of an economy will shape the direction of change and gradually alter the institutional framework. He then explains how institutional development may lead to a path-dependent pattern of development. In the final part of the book, North explains the implications of this analysis for economic theory and economic history. He indicates how institutional analysis must be incorporated into neo-classical theory and explores the potential for the construction of a dynamic theory of long-term economic change. Douglass C. North is Director of the Center of Political Economy and Professor of Economics and History at Washington University in St. Louis. He is a past president of the Economic History Association and Western Economics Association and a Fellow, American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He has written over sixty articles for a variety of journals and is the author of The Rise of the Western World: A New Economic History (CUP, 1973, with R.P. Thomas) and Structure and Change in Economic History (Norton, 1981). Professor North is included in Great Economists Since Keynes edited by M. Blaug (CUP, 1988 paperback ed.)
27,080 citations
TL;DR: Lindblom, C.E. as mentioned in this paper discussed the science of "muddling through" in the context of monetary policy. But he did not consider monetary policy with respect to inflation.
Abstract: Originally published as Lindblom, C.E. (1959). "The science of "muddling" through," Public Administration Review, 19(2): 79-88. Reprinted with kind permission. For a critical analysis of this issue's Classic Paper "The Science of 'Muddling' Through" by Charles E. Lindblom, please refer to Ronald J. Scott, Jr.'s article "The Science of Muddling Through Revisited" on pages 5-18. SUPPOSE an administrator is given responsibility for formulating policy with respect to inflation. He might start by trying to list all related values in order of importance, e.g., full employment, reasonable business profit, protection of small savings, prevention of a stock market crash. Then all possible policy outcomes could be rated as more or less efficient in attaining a maximum of these values. This would of course require a prodigious inquiry into values held by members of society and an equally prodigious set of calculations on how much of each value is equal to how much of each other value. He could then proceed to outline all possible policy alternatives. In a third step, he would undertake systematic comparison of his multitude of alternatives to determine which attains the greatest amount of values. In comparing policies, he would take advantage of any theory available that generalized about classes of policies. In considering inflation, for example, he would compare all policies in the light of the theory of prices. Since no alternatives are beyond his investigation, he would consider strict central control and the abolition of all prices and markets on the one hand and elimination of all public controls with reliance completely on the free market on the other, both in the light of whatever theoretical generalizations he could find on such hypothetical economies. Finally, he would try to make the choice that would in fact maximize his values. An alternative line of attack would be to set as his principal objective, either explicitly or without conscious thought, the relatively simple goal of keeping prices level. This objective might be compromised or complicated by only a few other goals, such as full employment. He would in fact disregard most other social values as beyond his present interest, and he would for the moment not even attempt to rank the few values that he regarded as immediately relevant. Were he pressed, he would quickly admit that he was ignoring many related values and many possible important consequences of his policies. As a second step, he would outline those relatively few policy alternatives that occurred to him. He would then compare them. In comparing his limited number of alternatives, most of them familiar from past controversies, he would not ordinarily find a body of theory precise enough to carry him through a comparison of their respective consequences. Instead he would rely heavily on the record of past experience with small policy steps to predict the consequences of similar steps extended into the future. Moreover, he would find that the policy alternatives combined objectives or values in different ways. For example, one policy might offer price level stability at the cost of some risk of unemployment; another might offer less price stability but also less risk of unemployment. Hence, the next step in his approach-the final selection- would combine into one the choice among values and the choice among instruments for reaching values. It would not, as in the first method of policymaking, approximate a more mechanical process of choosing the means that best satisfied goals that were previously clarified and ranked. Because practitioners of the second approach expect to achieve their goals only partially, they would expect to repeat endlessly the sequence just described, as conditions and aspirations changed and as accuracy of prediction improved. By Root or by Branch For complex problems, the first of these two approaches is of course impossible. …
6,596 citations
TL;DR: The term "New Institutionalism" is a term that now appears with growing frequency in political science as mentioned in this paper, and there is considerable confusion about just what the new institutionalism is, how it differs from other approaches, and what sort of promise or problems it displays.
Abstract: The ‘new institutionalism’ is a term that now appears with growing frequency in political science. However, there is considerable confusion about just what the ‘new institutionalism’ is, how it differs from other approaches, and what sort of promise or problems it displays. The object of this essay is to provide some preliminary answers to these questions by reviewing recent work in a burgeoning literature. Some of the ambiguities surrounding the new institutionalism can be dispelled if we recognize that it does not constitute a unified body of thought. Instead, at least three different analytical approaches, each of which calls itself a ‘new institutionalism’, have appeared over the past fifteen years. We label these three schools of thought: historical institutionalism, rational choice institutionalism, and sociological institutionalism.’ All of these approaches developed in reaction to the behavioural perspectives that were influential during the 1960s and 1970s and all seek to elucidate the role that institutions play in the determination of social and political outcomes. However, they paint quite different pictures of the political world. In the sections that follow, we provide a brief account of the genesis of each school and characterize what is distinctive about its approach to social and political problems. We then compare their analytical strengths and weaknesses, * An earlier version of this paper WLS presented at the 1994 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association and at a Conference on ‘What is Institutionalism Now? at the
5,455 citations
"Explaining Uncertainty Avoidance in..." refers background in this paper
...Excellent overviews are provided by Hall and Taylor (1996) and Sorensen (2017)....
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Book•
17 Apr 2007
TL;DR: The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable as mentioned in this paper is a book about Black Swans: the random events that underlie our lives, from bestsellers to world disasters, that are impossible to predict; yet after they happen we always try to rationalize them.
Abstract: Nassim Nicholas Taleb's phenomenal international bestseller The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable shows us how to stop trying to predict everything - and take advantage of uncertainty. What have the invention of the wheel, Pompeii, the Wall Street Crash, Harry Potter and the internet got in common? Why are all forecasters con-artists? What can Catherine the Great's lovers tell us about probability? Why should you never run for a train or read a newspaper? This book is all about Black Swans: the random events that underlie our lives, from bestsellers to world disasters. Their impact is huge; they're impossible to predict; yet after they happen we always try to rationalize them. "Taleb is a bouncy and even exhilarating guide...I came to relish what he said, and even develop a sneaking affection for him as a person." (Will Self, Independent on Sunday). "He leaps like some superhero of the mind." (Boyd Tonkin, Independent). "Funny, quirky and thought-provoking...confirms his status as a guru for every would-be Damien Hirst, George Soros and aspirant despot." (John Cornwell, Sunday Times). "Idiosyncratically brilliant." (Niall Ferguson, Sunday Telegraph). "Great fun...brash, stubborn, entertaining, opinionated, curious, cajoling. " (Stephen J. Dubner, Co-Author of Freakonomics).
4,036 citations
"Explaining Uncertainty Avoidance in..." refers background in this paper
...swans’, unforeseen events with adverse consequences or missed opportunities for the project and its environment (Taleb, 2007; Winch & Maytorena, 2012)....
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...Identifying all uncertainties is difficult, but not trying increases the chance of ‘black swans’, unforeseen events with adverse consequences or missed opportunities for the project and its environment (Taleb, 2007; Winch & Maytorena, 2012)....
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13 Feb 2003
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors explore the role of politicians and the public in the process of land-use development megaprojects and suggest practical solutions drawing on theory and scientific evidence from the several hundred projects in twenty nations and five continents.
Abstract: Promoters of multi-billion dollar land-use development megaprojects systematically misinform parliaments, the public and the media in order to get them approved and built This book not only explores these issues, but suggests practical solutions drawing on theory and scientific evidence from the several hundred projects in twenty nations and five continents It is of interest to students, scholars, planners, economists, auditors, politicians and concerned citizens
2,044 citations
"Explaining Uncertainty Avoidance in..." refers background in this paper
...Strategic misrepresentation and optimism bias can be curbed by a system of governance mechanisms, such as external quality control, increased transparency, increased accountability, proper risk allocation in contractual agreements, and so on (Flyvbjerg et al., 2003, 2009)....
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