Globalization and Skyscrapers: The Role of Architects in Latin America and Southeast Asia

Abstract

This paper performs a theoretical-empirical analysis of the effect of globalization on buildings’ height in Latin America and Southeast Asia. We develop a principal-agent model where global architecture firms use extra height as advertising in the tallest building per city, adding it to what determined by cities’ fundamentals of economic and geographic size. The model develops two ideas: (1) global architects have prestige advantages that allow them to add extra height, an advertising feature of their technical expertise and specialist competence, and (2) international architects of the Global South have additional reasons to use extra height compared to their Global North peers. The model is tested using a 2000–2018 panel database comprising 55 cities (from 25 countries). We find that in addition to economic and geography fundamentals, globalization and the location of architecture firms are strong determinants of buildings’ height, as predicted in our theoretical model of height as advertising.