Thesis help please?

Daniel C.

Hi all, I'm a newcomer to this forum and just stumbled across it while researching for my college work. I'm currently in my 4th year of a Quantity Surveying course (I know bad choice eh) but any ways this is my degree year and as part of this I have to complete a thesis. The topic for my thesis is " How the Recent Economic Downturn is affecting the Irish Construction Industry". I would appreciate any advice on what I should add to this topic and any help you may have would be much appreciated.

regards Daniel.

LeixlipRed

I reckon some posters are going to bash you for not putting forward some of your own ideas first. What do you think about it?

The Volt

Daniel C. wrote: »

Hi all, I'm a newcomer to this forum and just stumbled across it while researching for my college work. I'm currently in my 4th year of a Quantity Surveying course (I know bad choice eh) but any ways this is my degree year and as part of this I have to complete a thesis. The topic for my thesis is " How the Recent Economic Downturn is affecting the Irish Construction Industry". I would appreciate any advice on what I should add to this topic and any help you may have would be much appreciated.

regards Daniel.

Change the title to 'How the Irish Construction Industry contributed to the recent economic downturn' for a start.

meditraitor

You could change the title a wee bit, "how the recent downturn in the construction industry is effecting the economy" But either way the best place to start is at the beginning.......

Tax reliefs and easy credit......

meditraitor

Voltwad wrote: »

Change the title to 'How the Irish Construction Industry contributed to the recent economic downturn' for a start.

snap, sorry off topic

Daniel C.

thanks for the response's im currently on my literature review and going through the cycles of the irish economy from boom too bust throughout the past century and just concluding that with our latest boom being the celtic tiger, im paying particular attention to the government incentives provided which in my opinion fuelled the greed of the developers ( section 23,50) what im looking for is how should I illustrate the differences between say now and 2006, Should I do this through property prices, tender prices, banking, government legislation etc.. and would anyone have any ideas of some good case study's I could do to show these. Thanks again for your help.

kincsem

I found an article about three or four years back that showed that persoanal debt in the USA around 2006 was at a level higher than before the 1929 Wall Street crash.
What happened then (and now) was a big gap between personal incomes at the top and bottom. Then the bottom incomes borrowed on easy credit to close the gap. They couldn't meet the repayments. Crash.

This isn't the article but is something like it
http://www.gusmorino.com/pag3/greatdepression/

kincsem

Here is the article.
http://www.atlanticfreepress.com/content/view/1033/81/

I retired early in November 2006. My small savings were unused for two years until the stock market crashed, then I bought. The company I worked in crashed in 2008/9.

ISAW

meditraitor wrote: »

snap, sorry off topic

How about something snappier?

"Builders bankers and developers - their part in Ireland's economic downfall / (downturn?)"

I would start by looking into how big the total economny was and how many jobs in each of the big sectors e.g. construction, pharmachem, public service, health , finance etc. and how the trend changed over 1990 -2010.
You can get the stats quite easily from the CEO website. e.g.
http://www.cso.ie/statistics/empandunempilo.htm
http://laborsta.ilo.org/STP/guest
Break them down in terms of percent of the economy and percent of employment. a couple of pie charts for every 5 years or a line trend chart.
wow look at the trend over the Tiger years from 180 k ( 2002) to 280k (2007) 125k ( 2010)

You might look up haw many housed built per year.
There are good things too- Miles of motorway. Miles of rail and metro. Numbers of busses trains and passengers in public transport and airports all facilitated by construction projects.

The other massive projects i remember were the port tunnels (particularly Dublin) and the ****e pipe ( ie the Dubin Bay sewerage upgrade)


Then you have a big picture and can go into the how's whys and wherefores.

You might look into the breakdown of home building versus other construction. And reflect on how much of the base in home buyers is affected. You could also go into where people gravitate e.g. from new builds to renovations or extensions and how economic factors like taxation or material goods indices like stamp duty have an effect on this e.g it might be cheaper to move than to add an extension. Another interesting relation is house size and compare it to average living spare (Source EU workning and living condiotions or Household budget survey or consumer price index or family size in Census) and relate this to the number of one two and three bed dwellings and presto you might have a basis for zombie ap[artment blocks. If you can find a ratio of owner occupiers to renters this would be usefull. Are you doing any priomary research if so this could be done by contacting property managers or getting an owner to do so and asking then what percent are owner occupied. It is easy for them to answer this as the annual property charge has to be paid by the owner and they have an address for that. Dont be fobbed off by them. Id be interested in that figure myself when you compile them so would you post it back to me?

Daniel C.

ISAW wrote: »

. Id be interested in that figure myself when you compile them so would you post it back to me?

thanks very much ISAW that's a lot of help to me I have gotten a few good ideas from you. That's interesting about the rental ratio because a new trend of late here is renting, Most other EU countries rent properties instead of purchasing them, Germany is a good example of this where some people rent for life. I can see this trend coming into Ireland too as it may be a safer option in our unstable economy and I will be sure to include a chapter on this. I would be happy to email you on the finished product when I'm finished and that applies to anyone else who may want it too as It should make for an interesting read.

ISAW

kincsem wrote: »

I found an article about three or four years back that showed that persoanal debt in the USA around 2006 was at a level higher than before the 1929 Wall Street crash.
What happened then (and now) was a big gap between personal incomes at the top and bottom. Then the bottom incomes borrowed on easy credit to close the gap. They couldn't meet the repayments. Crash.

This isn't the article but is something like it
http://www.gusmorino.com/pag3/greatdepression/

i can't remember where but it could be in a Michael Moore movie There was an explaination of the crash of derivatives. It was explained in terms or the old "redline" scandel. A similar ruse used by Steptoe and Son[/n] in the comedy film.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redlining
It works like this:
Redlines were drawn around black areas in the US. No one lent money to blacks. Reverse redlining occurs when a lender or insurer particularly targets minority consumers, not to deny them loans or insurance, but rather to charge them more than would be charged to a similarly situated majority consumer, specifically marketing the most expensive and onerous loan products.

so in the example of Detroit say a hundred million in sub prime loans were given to mostly poor blacks but the small minority ( say ten million) of high earners when the loans were sold on as derivatives in Chicago. Eventually Finnish and Icelandic public companies might but these derivatives which were based on pure speculation and only had a few actual real earners propping them up.

some parallels come to light WRT Ireland
http://www.economicpopulist.org/content/origins-subprime-crisis-derivatives
1. Relaxation of regulation and oversight on financial institutions

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass%E2%80%93Steagall_Act


http://www.economicpopulist.org/content/origins-subprime-crisis-derivatives

Gillian Tett, in an article in the Financial Times (8/27/07), noted that market collapses have been associated with innovations that seem to have changed the rules. However, as in 1907 and 1929 our present dilemma is not due to a new innovation but one packaged as new

The origins of the present subprime crisis can be found in the Nixon Administration when his appointment to the SEC, Mitchell, removed the prohibitions to trades in futures and similar "bets" that has made our markets so unstable.
...
we should recall John Maynard Keynes' caution that we should not mistake what is probable for either knowledge or reality.
...
Some have come to regard American debt as money in a most strange view of value.
...
the "shadow banking system" that created the current subprime balloon and the derivative industry has been shunting off the risk to the public purse.
...

Basically what it means is people believe you can eliminate risk and remove controls on risky business.

In Ireland they lent a lot to property based risks. At least in the end NAMA has some property. In many cases you could have nothing under it all.

The significance for Ireland in terms of construction however is that it leaves a lot of property in state hands.

Some of it is partly or fully built. Is there a role for construction to either adapt or demolish these properties?

Daniel C.

bump. anyone have any more ideas for me on this?

smellycat123

hi all.
im completing a thesis and the aim is to ; determine the sustainable value to be realised from the development of a national wind farm specifically developed to meet the future electrical energy needs of Ireland schools.

Any help will be so great full, dont have the best relationship with the tutor. please help me if you can , very stressed, needs help on which areas i should look out and what primary research area i should look at.

please help, ill contact you with more detail if you can help

smelly caT