Is There Such a Thing as a Skyscraper Curse

Abstract

There is an emerging literature on the subject of skyscrapers and business cycles. Lawrence (1999) first noticed the correlation between important changes in the economy and the building of record-breaking skyscrapers. Thornton (2005) established a theoretical link between the two phenomena. Several papers have subsequently examined the impact of skyscraper building on the economy and in particular on the role of psychological factors on the building of record-breaking skyscrapers. Not surprisingly, most people scoff at this notion and Barr et al (2015) presents extensive empirical evidence that skyscrapers do not cause changes in GDP, but precisely the opposite. Here we show what the skyscraper curse actually is and show that the entire empirical literature on this subject supports the existence of a skyscraper curse, including most of Barr et al. (2015).