The Greek construction sector: an overview of recent developments

Abstract

Purpose

The aim of this paper is to present a review of the developments in the Greek construction sector since the year 2000.

Design/methodology/approach

The Greek construction sector – one of the most dynamic sectors of the Greek economy – grew quite strongly over the last decade. The paper follows a rather more descriptive approach to examine and analyse the factors that significantly boosted construction activity in Greece since the year 2000. It also studies and critically analyses the extent to which the Greek macro‐environment (legal‐political, economic, socio‐cultural, technological and demographic), as part of a broader nexus of domestic and global dynamics, affects construction companies.

Findings

The results indicate that the domestic and global macro‐environment have a substantial effect to the market participants in the Greek construction sector. The ability of the Greek construction companies to deal with, and in some cases take advantage of, the constantly changing domestic and global macro‐environment is expected to crucially affect their future viability and success.

Practical implications

This analysis of the Greek construction sector should be useful for industry professionals, policy‐makers and real estate lenders.

Originality/value

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, none of the existing studies in this area provides systematic treatment of the state of the macro‐environment as a contributory factor in explaining the performance of the Greek construction companies. The authors believe that this issue is an important one, especially in the case of industries such as construction, which is prone to cyclical activity.

Citation

Karousos, E. and Vlamis, P. (2008), "The Greek construction sector: an overview of recent developments", Journal of European Real Estate Research, Vol. 1 No. 3, pp. 254-266. https://doi.org/10.1108/17539260810924427