The effect of quantitative easing on Asian construction firms’ performance

Abstract

This research employs the Meta-Malmquist productivity index Data Envelopment analysis and panel data regression to figure out the performances of the construction industry from Taiwan, Korea, and China and their relationship to the US unconventional monetary policy-Quantitative Easing (QE). This contributes to the literature of the US QE effect on Asian countries. Overall, Korea is the top developed construction industry with continuous progress in productivity, China shows its improvement in catching up and innovation, and Taiwan firms lag behind the others. The regression results show the significant effect of QE on firm performance at different levels. This is meaningful to the policymakers in applying the same monetary policy to their country. Multi-stage DEA models and new further measures of QE should be considered in the coming researches.

Keywords:

• Performance
• meta-malmquist
• data envelopment analysis
• efficiency change
• technical change
• technical gap change
• construction industry
• quantitative easing

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 McKinsey Global Institute (Feb 2017). Reinvesting Construction: A Route to Higher Productivity

2 World Bank (2017): Policy Research Working Paper “The Global Role of the U.S. Economy: Linkages, Policies and Spillovers”

3 Korea Institute of Civil Engineering and Building Technology

4 The Business Value of BIM in China, Smart Market Report, Dodge Data & Analytics

5 Thomson Reuters Practical Law, “Construction and projects in Taiwan: Overview”, 2018; “Construction and pojects in China: Overview”, 2018; “Construction and projects in Korea: Overview”, 2014.