IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/mol/ecsdps/esdp25099.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Predicting Delays in Cohesion Infrastructure Projects

Author

Listed:
  • Coco, Giuseppe
  • Monturano, Gianluca
  • Resce, Giuliano

Abstract

Public investment in infrastructure is essential for economic growth, but delays in project implementation can undermine its benefits. This paper examines the determinants of such delays using data from cohesion projects in Italy. We predict which projects are likely to experience delays and identify the key contributing factors by means of machine learning (ML) techniques. To avoid endogeneity, we use only (lagged) features observed at the start of the project as predictors. Our findings show that socioeconomic factors and institutional weaknesses in various regions play a significant role in these delays. The discipline imposed by rules and strict implementation timing on EU funds seems to work, lending credibility to the hypothesis of the benefit of an external commitment. Results underscore the potential of ML in designing appropriate implementation policies, enhancing project management, and improving the outcomes of public investments.

Suggested Citation

  • Coco, Giuseppe & Monturano, Gianluca & Resce, Giuliano, 2025. "Predicting Delays in Cohesion Infrastructure Projects," Economics & Statistics Discussion Papers esdp25099, University of Molise, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:mol:ecsdps:esdp25099
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://web.unimol.it/progetti/repec/mol/ecsdps/ESDP25099.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Territorial cohesion; Administrative efficiency; Machine learning; Project Delays.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H77 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - Intergovernmental Relations; Federalism
    • R58 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Regional Government Analysis - - - Regional Development Planning and Policy
    • O18 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Urban, Rural, Regional, and Transportation Analysis; Housing; Infrastructure
    • C55 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric Modeling - - - Large Data Sets: Modeling and Analysis

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:mol:ecsdps:esdp25099. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Claudio Lupi (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dsmolit.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.