Socio-Economic Development and Infrastructure Cost Performance in China: Comparing Transport and Energy Sectors

Socio-economic development is often linked to efficient infrastructure provision. In China, the government has rolled out ambitious infrastructure projects as part of its national development strategy. There is much to praise about China’s infrastructure provision, such as its remarkable scale and speed of infrastructure delivery. However, based on studying 153 infrastructure cases between 1983 and 2018 and two in-depth case studies, we find that China’s infrastructure performance is not as positive as often assumed. We show that infrastructure projects continuously arrive significantly over budget. We argue that this cost performance depends – similar to Western countries – on inaccurately anticipating technical hindrances and geographical challenges. In addition, however, we identify another important and so far less discussed project performance determinant specifically relevant to the Chinese context: population resettlements and land acquisition.