There is lots of research on that for transport infrastructure at least.

https://transitcosts.com/

https://pedestrianobservations.com/

There's been some work done on this in the US context (eg [0]) but not really enough. It seems like general large project issues (need to adapt to site specific conditions as they are discovered, difficulty ensuring work stays properly scheduled so that construction workers don't sit idle for large amounts of time, etc.) are a big part, and these are made worse because of the knock on impact when these interact with safety regulations/processes.

There's some hope that making designs smaller and more modular might enable less chance of big overspend at a slightly higher expected cost but that's speculation until we actually do it.

0. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S254243512...

Ultimately, if you're forced to send cluster munitions because your ammo factory is a historically listed building that can't expand to fulfill demand, I think it won't matter how much you cut everything else. You just can't build another ammo factory, so you just don't get to do things.