The Skyscraper Index- A Precursor to Recession

Business Insider posted a review of the Skyscraper Index, a 1999 thesis by Andrew Lawrence which stated the completion of the high rise towers correlates with the onset of recessions. The list of examples include....

This index- if you want to call it that- has always struck me as voodoo analysis, much in the same regards as the Super Bowl Winner index or the hem line index. However, an Austrian-based economist did put some more concrete analysis around this supposed phenomenon, namely that the the height of skyscrapers (and recessionary conditions) is the effect of an increase in economy-wide debt levels, the cause.

qjae8_1_4 by plato363

Maybe I should not have been so quick to pass off this index. Regardless of the opinions, we should soon see the index in a real-time environment shortly, as One World Trade Center in New York and Sky City Tower in China are set to be completed and opened in 2014.