For more than two decades, scholars have been escalating asymmetric information issues in megaproject management linking them to enhanced public debt concerns. Most megaprojects turn out to be a burden on economy when constructions are completed. Authorities, meanwhile, continue to promote the advancement of megaprojects with overly optimistic public messages on expected socio-economic benefits. A combination of expertise in the topic, in-depth literature analysis, independent cost-benefit reassessment, and empirical survey of related documentation of three EU transport megaprojects shows political implications to be the essential causes of information asymmetries in megaproject management. Socio-economic over-estimations imply to be useful for obtaining and securing funding commitments at the political level, but then the real project value is often omitted from the assessment. This work takes a wider, strategic approach beyond the usual socio-economic reasoning. The article argues that socio-economic assessment practice is too narrow to grasp the full potential impact of a megaproject. Therefore, a strategic assessment should be performed by public authorities along with an appropriate funding mechanism. This work contributes to science by suggesting a direction to more constructive discussions between scholars and politicians that could lead to more effective future decisions on the overall sustainability of economies.

Even though the importance of economic resilience has increased as economic shocks have become more frequent in the world, there is still a knowledge gap on how to measure it. In search for effective ways to measure national resilience, this article identifies and mathematically proves the existence of direct correlation between resilience and competitiveness through time-specific global correlation rate. This research proposes an economic performance evaluation method that measures the competitiveness of countries facing economic shocks and recovering from them. A quantified method for identification of global economic shocks through industrial portfolio is proposed as well. The holistic approach internalises most externalities and a nation’s resilience is pared down to its ability to compete in the international trade, linking the main determinants of resilience to the basics of human behaviour. The proposed methodology can be used effectively for national and global economic performance estimations. It also opens a range of new possibilities for economic resilience studies.

Purpose – the purpose of this research is to find the benchmark, triggering a significant shift of the EU transport infrastructure construction sector from usual labour to the IT-based project implementation. The work aims to find obstacles that hold off IT from booming in this sector. Research methodology – following the literature overview, three bills of quantities of sample transport infrastructure construction projects selected as the objects for analysis and the mathematical-statistical method was applied to actually completed projects to find the benchmark for costs of respective IT development. Findings – the findings of this work suggest a 10% benchmark of project scope, applicable for IT innovations at the expense of human labour demand. Research limitations – EU financial support and public procurements of investment projects are mostly applicable for investment phase. This research is therefore limited to the analysis of investment activities. Practical implications – the industry stakeholders would welcome the IT if innovations developed with the budget not exceeding the benchmark. IT researchers and developers could use the results for cost adjustments of their offered solutions to the EU transport construction companies. Originality/Value – this work encourages discussions on initiation of the initiatives at the political level aiming to the requalification of the existing unemployed labour force in order to meet the current labour demand in the construction market as a whole. It provides a direction for future scientific researches and IT developers in order to increase the attractiveness of IT for application in construction projects.