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The success of construction contractors largely depends on the specific terms and the availability of sufficient funds for realizing planned projects. Financial issues in construction have been discussed since mid 1970s, yet no consensus about progress has been reached in the construction finance literature. A systematic analysis of 259 finance related studies in construction is undertaken to identify research trends, critical topics, and performance of journals and authors. To map the productivity in construction finance field, Scopus database was searched for the entire period for which this database provides online coverage. Results reveal that 'financial health' category, in particular one group of studies aiming to monitor and assess the financial performance of construction organizations for broader strategic issues pervaded the construction finance research. However, notably the 'identification of capital structure, determinants and financing instruments' category received less and only recent attention from scholars, despite the significance of capital structure decisions under firm and country specific determinants in preventing company failures. Key words: bibliometric analysis, construction, finance, financial management, research trends. Le succes des entrepreneurs en construction depend en grande partie des termes specifiques et de la disponibilite de fonds suffisants pour realiser les projets planifies. Bien que les questions financieres en construction aient ete abordees depuis le milieu des annees 1970, aucun consensus quant au progres n'a ete obtenu dans la litterature au sujet des finances dans la construction. Une analyse systematique de 259 etudes reliees aux finances dans la construction est effectuee pour definir les tendances de la recherche, les sujets critiques et la performance de journaux et d'auteurs. Afin de representer la productivite dans le domaine des finances de construction, la base de donnees Scopus a ete fouillee sur la periode entiere pendant laquelle cette base de donnees fournit des donnees en ligne. Les resultats revelent que dans la categorie << sante financiere >>, en particulier un ensemble d'etudes visant a surveiller et a evaluer le rendement financier des organisations de construction evaluant des questions strategiques plus larges se faisait omnipresent dans la recherche de finance de construction. Cependant, notablement la categorie << identification de structure capitale, des determinants et des instruments de financement >> n'a recu de l'attention de la part des chercheurs que recemment, malgre l'importance des decisions de structure du capital en fonction de determinants specifiques aux entreprises et aux pays dans la prevention d'echecs d'entreprise. [Traduit par la Redaction] Mots-cles : analyse par bibliometrie, construction, finance, gestion financiere, tendances dans le domaine de la recherche., Introduction As construction is regarded as an important sector in policy making due to its strong interactions with other sectors, improved efficiency in the sector should, in theory, further stimulate [...]

Introduction and summary Nearly a third of all families purchasing new homes in 2006 obtained a mortgage from a financing company owned by or affiliated with a large homebuilder (see [...]

To link to full-text access for this article, visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ejor.2008.11.039 Byline: Toshiyuki Sueyoshi (a)(b), Mika Goto (c) Keywords: DEA; Discriminant Analysis; Finance; Japanese industrial policy Abstract: This study describes a practical use of Data Envelopment Analysis-Discriminant Analysis (DEA-DA) for bankruptcy-based performance assessment. DEA-DA is useful for classifying non-default and default firms based upon their financial performance. However, when we apply DEA-DA to a data set on corporate bankruptcy, we usually face three problems. First, there is a sample imbalance problem because the number of default firms is often limited. In contrast, we can easily obtain a large number of non-default firms. Second, there is a computational problem to deal with a large data set. We need to consider a computational strategy to reduce the dimension of a large data set. Finally, we need to consider data alignment because the location of default firms may exist within that of non-default firms. This study discusses a simultaneous occurrence of the three problems from the perspective of Japanese industrial policy on construction business. To handle the three problems, this study combines DEA-DA with principal component analysis to reduce the computational burden and then alters DEA-DA weights to address both the sample imbalance problem and the location problem. This study also discusses a combined use between DEA-DA and rank sum tests to examine statistically hypotheses related to bankruptcy assessment. As an important application, we apply the proposed approach to the Japanese construction industry and discuss why many Japanese construction firms are misclassified. Author Affiliation: (a) New Mexico Institute of Mining & Technology, Department of Management, 801 Leroy Place, Socorro, NM 87801, USA (b) National Cheng Kung University, College of Business, Department of Industrial and Information Management, Tainan, Taiwan (c) Central Research Institute of Electric Power Industry, 2-11-1, Iwado Kita, Komae-shi, 201-8511 Tokyo, Japan Article History: Received 7 March 2007; Accepted 25 November 2008

Performance forecasting is central to aligning an organization's operations with its strategic direction. Despite the panoply of approaches to performance predictions, relatively few published studies address model development of financial performance predictions for the construction industry. By analyzing the preceding relationship between financial and economic variables and financial performance, this paper proposes an innovative approach to predicting firm financial performance. First, hypothesis tests using data for 42 development and construction corporations listed in the construction sector of the Taiwan Stock Exchange between 1997 QI and 2006 Q4 uncover useful relationships between financial performance and financial and economic variables. Second, based on these relationships, a three-stage mathematical modeling procedure is used for cross-sectional model estimation, which is subsequently refined to create firm-specific financial performance-forecasting models for four sample firms. The out-of-sample forecasting accuracy is evaluated using mean absolute percentage error (MAPE). The results show that the cross-sectional model explains 78.9% of the variation in the cross-sectional performance data, and the MAPE values in the forecasting models range from 9.54 to 19.69%. DOI: 10.1061/(ASCE)CO.1943-7862.0000077 CE Database subject headings: Financial factors; Forecasting; Models; Time series analysis; Construction companies.

In financial decision-making processes, the adopted weights of the objective functions have significant impacts on the final decision outcome. However, conventional rating and weighting methods exhibit difficulty in deriving appropriate weights for complex decision-making problems with imprecise information. Entropy is a quantitative measure of uncertainty and has been useful in exploring weights of attributes in decision making. A fuzzy and entropy-based mathematical approach is employed to solve the weighting problem of the objective functions in an overall cash-flow model. The multiproject being undertaken by a medium-size construction firm in Hong Kong was used as a real case study to demonstrate the application of entropy. Its application in multiproject cash flow situations is demonstrated. The results indicate that the overall before-tax profit was HK$ 0.11 millions lower alter the introduction of appropriate weights. In addition, the best time to invest in new projects arising from positive cash flow was identified to be two working months earlier than the nonweight system. DOI: 10.1061/(ASCE)0733-9364(2006)132:10(1099) CE Database subject headings: Decision making; Entropy; Financial management: Fuzzy sets; Weighing devices.

The importance of the construction sector in national economies around the globe and the global nature of the industry require a prudent international comparison of construction costs. From the view of international construction ventures, cost comparisons have generally been accomplished using published currency exchange rates. Global organizations dealing with development aid and the comparison of the gross domestic product (GDP) of nations have used an approach that has its roots in established econometric theories. This approach is based on the Casselian purchasing power parity (PPP) doctrine that essentially conducts the comparison based on the local purchasing power of currencies, as opposed to exchange rates. The World Bank, which conducts the GDP comparison, uses the PPP-based approach to compare construction sector output. This paper provides an overview of the background and application of PPP and its use for international cost comparisons conducted for various nations. Methods currently used for construction cost comparisons are reviewed. A critical review of domestic construction cost comparison approaches is provided with the intent to identify the key differences between temporal and spatial comparisons. Case studies of construction cost factors are used to demonstrate the importance of PPP-based cost comparisons for construction economics. CE Database subject headings: Economic analysis; Financial management; Construction costs; Cost estimates; Construction management; International factors.