Marketplace · Monday, June 29, 2026
Professor Lea Brooks of George Washington University discusses the difficulty in accurately measuring the true cost of infrastructure projects. She notes that initial bids are often lower than final costs due to markups, externalities, and lengthy complaint processes, making precise cost assessment challenging.
“measuring the cost of building infrastructure over time: very hard to do well.”
“Because it's so, so hard, guys. It's hard because there are lots of important things that go into building infrastructure that we can't measure in a standard way.”
“We are very, very bad at measuring the final price tag.”
“What Zach Liskov, a Yale professor and I have written is that part of the reason it costs so much more in the US than elsewhere in the world is because we give citizens an unparalleled ability to complain.”