Financial regulators worried about a repeat of the boom-bust cycle that has plagued many western economies including the UK should keep an eye out for a jump in the number of builders, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Based on analysis of crashes in both advanced and developing countries stretching back to the 1970s, it found that long-lasting debt-based booms that featured a surge in construction activity always ended in tears.
The worst booms – that is, the costliest of the bad booms, based on the severity of the ensuing recession – are associated with higher growth in the construction sector during the boom phase.
The pace of construction activity during the boom phase is a better predictor of the economic costs associated with bad booms than other signals including household borrowing, which has traditionally been seen as a warning sign.
Deniz Igan, the deputy chief of the IMF research department’s macro-financial division, highlighted the example of Spain in 2008 where the property market crashed, triggering loan defaults and bank failures. She said that construction employment had surged 47 per cent in the run-up to the crash, compared with 27 per cent across the economy as a whole.
“Our research shows that the experience with the dangerous combination of credit booms and rapid expansion in the construction sector goes beyond the Spanish borders and extends to time periods not related to the global financial crisis,” she said.
“We find that signals from construction activity may help to tell apart the dangerous booms, which need to be controlled, from the episodes of buoyant but healthy credit growth or ‘good booms’.”
A good boom tends to last around three years with moderate growth in lending and borrowing. A bad boom, on the other hand, lasts for longer but is followed by a major economic downturn or even a systemic financial crisis.
“An unusually rapid expansion of the construction sector helps flag bad credit booms,” Ms Igan said, adding that a 1 percentage point increase in employment growth in the construction sector during a boom raises the probability of the boom being bad by 5 percentage points.
The IMF, which also acts as global financial watchdog, urged policymakers to keep watch for rapid expansions in activity in and lending to the construction sectors.
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EPA
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Commuters with protective facemasks wait to board a canal boat at Pratunam Pier in Bangkok. A Thai surgical mask factory, producing 10 million masks a month, increased working hours to cope with the rising demand following the outbreak of the coronavirus in China
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Getty
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AFP via Getty
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26/50 19 January 2020
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AFP via Getty
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AFP via Getty
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AFP via Getty
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AFP via Getty
30/50 15 January 2020
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A resident who briefly returned home to retrieve belongings carries figurines of Jesus Christ and Mother Mary in Laurel, Batangas province, Philippines. The Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology raised the alert level to four out of five, warning that a hazardous eruption could take place anytime, as authorities have evacuated tens of thousands of people from the area
Getty
32/50 13 January 2020
Mini’s driver Jakub Przygonski and his co-driver Timo Gottschalk compete in Stage 8 of the Dakar 2020 around Wadi Ad-Dawasir
AFP via Getty
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An injured Syrian child cries after being transported to a clinic for treatment following an air strike by pro-regime forces on the nothwestern city of Idlib
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35/50 10 January 2020
Vets and volunteers treat koalas at Kangaroo Island Wildlife Park, southwest of Adelaide, Australia
AAP Image/Reuters
36/50 9 January 2020
Devotees follow the carriage transporting the statue of the Black Nazarene during an annual religious procession in its honour in Manila. Thousands of barefoot devotees joined the religious procession hoping to touch a centuries-old icon of Jesus Christ, called the Black Nazarene, which is believed to have miraculous powers
AFP via Getty
37/50 8 January 2020
People stand near the wreckage after a Ukrainian plane carrying 176 passengers crashed near Imam Khomeini airport in Tehran
ISNA/AFP via Getty
38/50 7 January 2020
Mourners gather around a vehicle carrying the coffin of Iranian top general Qasem Soleimani during the final stage of funeral processions, in his hometown Kerman. Soleimani was killed outside Baghdad airport Friday in a drone strike ordered by US President Donald Trump, ratcheting up tensions with Iran which has vowed “severe revenge”. The assassination of the 62-year-old heightened international concern about a new war in the Middle East and rattled financial markets
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Tasnim News/AFP/Getty
41/50 4 January 2020
Rescue personnel search for bodies among mud and debris following a landslide caused by heavy rain in West Java, Indonesia
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42/50 3 January 2020
A burning vehicle at the Baghdad International Airport is seen following an airstrike in Baghdad, Iraq. The Pentagon said Thursday that the US military has killed Gen. Qassem Soleimani, the head of Iran’s elite Quds Force, at the direction of President Donald Trump
AP
43/50 2 January 2020
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Robert Oerlemans via AP
44/50 1 January 2020
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EPA
45/50 31 December 2019
A man rides a donkey cart against the last setting sun of 2019 in Lahore, Pakistan
Reuters
46/50 30 December 2019
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EPA
47/50 29 December 2019
A jumper soars through the air during a trial jump at the first stage of the 68th four hills ski jumping tournament in Oberstdorf, Germany
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48/50 28 December 2019
Revellers dressed in mock military garb throw eggs as they take part in the “Els Enfarinats” battle in the southeastern Spanish town of Ibi on December 28, 2019. – During this 200-year-old traditional festival participants known as Els Enfarinats (those covered in flour) dress in military clothes and stage a mock coup d’etat as they battle using flour, eggs and firecrackers outside the city town hall as part of the celebrations of the Day of the Innocents, a traditional day in Spain for pulling pranks.
AFP via Getty
49/50 27 December 2019
The Panamanian-flag cargo ship “Zelek Star” is pictured after being washed up on a beach in the southern Israeli coastal city of Ashdod during a storm
AFP via Getty
50/50 26 December 2019
Monks wearing solar filter glasses watch the “ring of fire” solar eclipse at the Gaden monastery in a Tibetan colony in Teginkoppa, India
AFP via Getty
The fund does not recommend raising interest rates but instead suggests using other tools such as imposing higher deposits on mortgage-funded house sales or limits on banks’ exposure to real-estate developers and other construction firms.
Despite the ever-present display of cranes on the skyline of London and other UK cities, the construction sector been contracting for the last eight months according to the monthly purchasing managers’ index (PMI).
The PMI for January published last week showed that employers continued to cut back on their workforce. “Construction firms are not yet ready to scale up plans to increase workforces in the coming months without a stronger economic and political recovery clearly in sight,” Duncan Brock, group director at the Chartered Institute of Procurement and Supply, said at the time.
