In any market, there’ll be a limited number of contractors capable of doing a really big job like building a railway line (or constructing an aircraft carrier, or a fighter jet, or whatever).
These contractors have a game theoretic choice to make: either they work hard to compete on price, or they inflate their budgets and count on their competitors to do so too, safe in the knowledge that there’s enoigh projects going around that everyone can have a nice fat slice of pie.
Theoretically a new competitor could enter the market and eat everyone’s lunch, but... all the institutional knowledge on how to build a train line or aircraft carrier belongs to the big players and it’s too hard to enter.
The difference in construction costs between various different markets seems to just be different game theoretic equilibria at work.
Careful design of regulation can lower the barriers to entry, and thus make colluding harder.
You are right about the scale of the big players making it hard for upstarts to compete. One of the most straightforward ways to still get competition, is to make it possible (or even easy!) for foreign companies to bid.
there are lots of companies that know how to build rail, and most use subs that can be hired by anyone rather than owning all that labour and risk themselves.
Comparing rail lines to aircraft carriers is ridiculous and discredits your entire post.
If everyone inflates their price the one who inflates it the least wins. That's not how the industry actually works. its far more common to bid low and try to make up the profit in claims.
You know nothing about this industry and its obvious from your writing.
These contractors have a game theoretic choice to make: either they work hard to compete on price, or they inflate their budgets and count on their competitors to do so too, safe in the knowledge that there’s enoigh projects going around that everyone can have a nice fat slice of pie.
Theoretically a new competitor could enter the market and eat everyone’s lunch, but... all the institutional knowledge on how to build a train line or aircraft carrier belongs to the big players and it’s too hard to enter.
The difference in construction costs between various different markets seems to just be different game theoretic equilibria at work.