Yet China continues to grow at rates approaching 8 percent at a time when much of the global economy is on the verge of recession. And while Hong Kong is experiencing deflation and record unemployment, there's little panic about the city's economic situation.
This isn't the first time the Skyscraper Index hasn't worked out. The opening of New York's Woolworth Building in 1913, for example, didn't presage an economic crisis. It was the world's tallest at the time. But just because Lawrence's economic barometer isn't jibing with recent events doesn't mean we should ignore it.
The measure's track record is nearly impeccable. In the midst of the Panic of 1907, the finishing touches were being put on the 47-story Singer Building. Ditto for the 50-story Metropolitan Life Building. Later on, the completion of 40 Wall Street in 1929 proved to be a harbinger of the Great Depression.
And let's not forget the US boom of the 1990s. In September 1999, the Chicago Plan Commission green-lighted a 468m giant that would be the world's tallest in the city's Loop district.
And, as fate would have it, a bubble in US stocks began deflating a few months later.
The upshot is that investors should keep an eye on whether world's-tallest-building-fever continues in the years ahead. Yet what about the projects early in the works? Are they precursors to economic problems? China, for example, is home to a variety of massive skyscraper projects. That flurry of construction comes at a time of great uncertainty as it morphs from a socialist economy to a capitalist one. Across the Taiwan Strait, the Taipei 101 also aims to be the world's tallest building when it's completed.
Tallest-building projects elsewhere have been scaled back -- which could be good news for those economies if the Skyscraper Curse remains intact. One in Melbourne, Australia has been redesigned. In India, one-time Beatles spiritual adviser Mahareshi Mahesh Yogi also has reconsidered plans to build the biggest skyscraper.
What all this means for economies and markets is highly debatable. Still, history shows skyscrapers may provide more information than meets the eye.
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