Procurement and Infrastructure Costs (Zach Liscow)

Zach Liscow is Professor of Law at Yale Law School. From 2022-23, he was the Chief Economist at the White House Office of Management and Budget. We discuss his recent article, Procurement and Infrastructure Costs (with William Nober and Cailin Slattery), which collects new project-level data and surveys of state DOT officials to document variation in infrastructure procurement costs across states and identify cost drivers, including capacity and competition.

Appendices: Zach Liscow: Robert Kagan, Adversarial Legalism Greg Shill: Brian Potter, Why Can’t the U.S. Build Ships? Jeff Lin: Abhay Aneja & Guo Xu, Strengthening State Capacity: Civil Service Reform and Public Sector Performance during the Gilded Age Follow us on the web or on “X,” formerly known as Twitter: @denselyspeaking. Jeff, Greg, and Zach can be found on Bluesky at @jeffrlin.bsky.social, @gregshill.com, and @zliscow.bsky.social.

Producer: Nathan Spindler-Krage The views expressed on the show are those of the participants, and do not necessarily represent the views of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, the Federal Reserve System, or any of the other institutions with which the hosts or guests are affiliated.