Akintoye, A; Bowen, P and Hardcastle, C (1998) Macro-economic leading indicators of construction contract prices. Construction Management and Economics, 16(2), pp. 159-175. ISSN 01446193
Abstract
An understanding of future trends in construction prices is likely to influence the construction investment strategy of a variety of interested parties, ranging from private and public clients to construction contractors, property speculators, financial institutions, and construction professionals. This paper derives leading indicators for construction prices in the United Kingdom. These indicators are based on two experimental methods: turning points of the basic indicators in relation to construction price turning points; and predictive power of lags of the basic indicators. It is concluded, based on the analyses, that unemployment level, construction output, industrial production, and ratio of price to cost indices in manufacturing are consistent leading indicators of construction prices. Building cost index and gross national product constitute coincident indicators. 'Popular' macro-economic time series such as nominal interest rate, inflation rate, real interest rate, all share index and money supply produced inconclusive results.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | forecasting; leading indicator; macro-economic variables; price; tender price index; time series analysis |
| Index terms: | cost index, time-series analysis, inflation, tender price index, public client, forecasting, United Kingdom, unemployment, construction output, time series, construction professional, interest rate, investment strategy, construction contract, construction contractor |
| Subjects: | quantity surveying, data science, economic analysis, practitioner, contract type, sociology, Geography, operations management, prediction and forecasting, research evaluation and metrics, professional development |
| Topics: | Information Management, Geographical Context, Roles and Professions, Business Strategy, Research Practice, Project Management, Stakeholder Management, Procurement |
| Descriptive scope: | 4 PCTA |
N.B. Descriptive scope is a count of how many of the five facets of empirical research are indicated by the words used in title, abstract and keywords. It is not intended as a judgement on the research; merely a count of the kind of word we would expect to indicate Phenomenon, Concepts, Theoretical framing, Empirical techniques, Analytical techniques. If all five are present, then a code of “5 PCTEA” will indicate this. If you feel the coding for this record is questionable, we welcome discussion around the terms we matched or the way we categorized them. The facet you would expect may not be coded, or a facet may be coded inappropriately. This can also bear on a larger question, of which facets should be treated as defining in construction management research. Please get in touch, and we will look at it. More details here