Diagnosing and quantifying post-COVID-19 fluctuations in the architecture billings indices

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to understand the post-COVID-19 fluctuations in the building construction demand from various angles at the national, regional, and sectoral levels. Despite the significant impact of COVID-19 on the building construction industry, a detailed quantitative analysis of the COVID-19 impact on the building construction demand is still lacking. The current study aims to (1) establish a statistical approach to quantify the COVID-19 impact on the building construction demand;(2) investigate the post-COVID-19 fluctuations in the construction demand of different building services, regional markets, and building sectors using the historical time series of the architecture billings index (ABI);and (3) identify vulnerable market and sector and discuss the post-COVID-19 recovery strategies. Design/methodology/approach: The research methodology follows four steps: (1) collecting national, regional, and sectoral ABIs;(2) creating seasonal autoregressive integrated moving average models;(3) illustrating cumulative sum control charts to identify significant ABI deviations;and (4) quantifying the post-COVID-19 ABI fluctuations. Findings: The results show that all the ABIs experienced a statistically significant decrease after COVID-19. The project inquiries index reduced more but recovered faster than billings and design contracts indices. The midwest billings index decreased the most among the regional ABIs and the commercial/industrial billing index dropped the most among the sectoral ABIs. Originality/value: This study is unique in the way that it utilized the ABI data and the approach using SARIMA models and CUSUM control charts to assess the post-COVID-19 building construction demand represented by ABI fluctuations. © 2022, Emerald Publishing Limited.

CLIMATE FINANCE IN THE WAKE OF COVID-19: CONNECTEDNESS OF CLEAN ENERGY WITH CONVENTIONAL ENERGY AND REGIONAL STOCK MARKETS

Focusing on raising climate concerns and sustaining a clean ecosystem, the current study strives to examine the connectedness of clean energy markets with conventional energy markets and four regional stock markets of Asia, Pacific, Europe, and America for the period spanning January 1, 2004 to August 31, 2021. We employed the volatility connectedness methodology using dynamic conditional correlation (DCC-GARCH) estimates for analysis purposes. There is pronounced within class connectedness of all markets except conventional energy markets, which showed strong disconnection from the network. However, strong inter-class spillovers are reported between clean energy and regional stock markets. Time-varying analysis revealed that intense spillovers are shaped during the Global Financial Crisis, Shale Oil Crisis, and COVID-19 pandemic. Meanwhile, time-varying net connectedness estimates illuminate that world renewable energy and American stock markets are net transmitters, whereas leftover markets are net recipients of spillovers. Further analysis of sub-sample periods during GFC, SOR, and COVID-19 validate that intense spillovers are formed when markets experience unexpected financial, economic, and global health turmoil. We proposed significant implications for regional stock markets of Asia, Pacific, Europe and America to concentrate on the climate-friendly energy markets than conventional energy markets as they service the clean ecosystem motives more specifically.