The skyscraper index, long discussed but never formally introduced, is one of the great irreverent economic indicators. The idea is that there is a correlation between the periods in which the tallest skyscrapers are built and the imminence of financial crisis.
Think of the Empire State Building opening into the Wall Street crash of 1929, the Twin Towers being completed as New York City was flirting with bankruptcy or the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur taking the mantle of the world’s tallest building and presaging the Asian financial crisis. Most recently the construction of the Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest structure, foreshadowed the collapse in the Dubai property market.
The index is not entirely surprising: super-tall buildings are almost inevitably conceived in a boom and take long enough to build that a bust cannot be far round the corner.