Do projects learn across space and time? Evidence from the Olympics
研究奥运会这一大型公共项目，发现其成本超支在64年间并未持续改善，战术学习丰富但未能转化为战略提升，并提出四种克服时空障碍的策略。
Do projects learn across space and time? The Olympics, themselves among the largest publicly funded programmes in the world, offer a unique empirical setting. Theoretically, the Games seem ideal for generating ‘positive learning curves’, driving down costs from one iteration to the next. In practice, they do not. Drawing on the concept of ‘myopia of learning’, we argue that spatiotemporality (geographic distance, temporal gaps, and the temporary organizational form of each host committee) combines to block higher-level learning. Our analysis of cost overruns from 1960 to 2024 reveals no sustained improvement over 64 years. Tactical learning abounds, but none aggregates into strategic improvement. We propose four strategies for overcoming the spatiotemporal barrier (incremental, centralizing, decentralizing, and real options), arguing that radical reform is required.