A revisit to Turin's paradigm. Construction and development in the 1970s and 1980s

Abstract

One of the earliest works on the economic significance of the construction industry and its role within the national economy was undertaken by Duccio A. Turin, then London Master Builders' Association Professor of Building at the Building Economics Research Unit, University College London. The quantitative relationships between construction and other important indicators of economic development were depicted for the first time by Turin in 1969. This has since then become one of the most frequently quoted works on the subject. Turin's findings were also adopted subsequently by major international agencies assigned with the task of resolving the problem of underdevelopment in the developing countries. Since Turin's studies some two decades ago, there has so far been no attempt to update the construction-development paradigm along the same format using statistical data sourced from the 1970s and 1980s. For the past 20 years most researchers appear to have assumed that Turin's findings will be 'more-or-less' valid. While this supposition may be true to a certain extent, there will inevitably be some discrepancies when Turin's findings are analysed in the modern day context, where technological innovations and the completion of most of the required buildings and infrastructural facilities are expected to exert an influence on the existing relationship between construction and economic development. While this relationship still appears to be valid today, the degree or intensity with which construction and development link may, however, shift from the original quantitative models suggested by Turin. The extent of this suggested shift over time is, however, unknown despite the large number of research studies which have purportedly explored the relationship between construction and economic development over the last two decades. In view of this lacuna, this paper will attempt to replicate Turin's original paradigm for construction and development using data sourced from the 1970s and 1980s. © 1992.