Sarcouncil Journal of Public Administration and Management

Abstract: Cost-benefit analysis (CBA) has long been used in the public infrastructure investment appraisal to make resource allocation decisions and policy choices. Nonetheless, due to the growing insecurity that climate change poses to U.S infrastructure systems, the technological disruption, and the social equity issues, deterministic evaluation models are not proving to be effective. It has been the shortcomings of the traditional economic systems that have led to increased progression towards complex and dynamic approaches that can take multidimensional performance and long-term dynamics of the systems into consideration. The research paper is a synthesis of the current methodological developments in the appraisal models, with emphasis on the real options analysis, Monte Carlo simulation, and multicriteria decision analysis (MCDA), and new hybrid models that combine these techniques. Taken together, these methods improve the ability of the public decision systems to meet the goals of uncertainty, diversity of the stakeholders, and resiliency. According to comparative analysis, the application of methodological pluralism based on quantitative rigor and participatory and data-driven information dramatically enhances the strength and autonomy of infrastructure investment judgments. In the case of U.S. public projects, such a pluralistic model is a major move towards adaptive, transparent, and future-responsive governing in the management of complex infrastructure systems.