Besides being a major constituent of the industrialised economies, many aspects of the construction sector such as its heterogeneity, high volatility, low productivity gains and tendency to generate bubbles make it a particularly fertile field of analysis by modern economic tools. This collection deals with some interesting economic questions related to construction and real estate, namely how construction firms cope with the volatility of construction; whether speculative bubbles or market fundamentals drive those fluctuations; new techniques to predict construction demand; why the office market led the recent real estate cycle; and whether regulation is responsible for speculative behaviour.

Introduction; P.Thalmann & M.Zarin-Nejadan
Diversification as a Strategy for Minimising Fluctuations in Construction Firm Turnovers; M.Ball & P.Antonioni
The 1985-95 Cycle in Real Estate Markets: Bubble or Shock; D.Cornuel & F.Calcoen
Estimating Construction Demand in Singapore: Potential of Neural Networks; F.Tan & G.Ofori
Lump-sum Moving Cost; G.Romijn
Rent Growth Control and the Transition of Land to Urban Use; A.McFarlane

PHILIPPE THALMANN is Professor of Economic at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne. He teaches and writes on the economics of the housing, property and construction markets; the economics of the environment; and sustainable development.

MILAD ZARIN-NEJADAN is Professor of Economics at the University of Neuchatel in Switzerland. He is also a regular consultant to the Swiss Ministry of Economy and the OECD. His areas of expertise include economic policy, public economics and public finance.