Impact of the Wenchuan Earthquake on Construction Index Using an EMD-Based Event Analysis Method

Abstract

The impact of certain extreme events on the construction index is of greatly importance which could be viewed as a huge turning to the index. In the paper, the Wenchuan Earthquake of China would be chosen as the extreme event and an EMD-based (Empirical Mode Decomposition) analysis approach would be used to test the earthquake’s impact. In the proposed method, a t-test is necessary to prove the significant level which could say the earthquake did have huge influence on the change of the construction index (399235.SZ) measured in Shenzhen stock market. Then the time series would be decomposed into six different modes and one residue which represent different turnings with different fluctuations and an average trend. Different fluctuations are caused by different factors but there is only one or several dominant modes can reflect the impact caused by certain extreme event which is the Wenchuan Earthquake of China in this study. Through a step-by-step analysis based on the EMD-based analysis approach, a simple solution would be obtained to estimate the huge impact caused by the Wenchuan Earthquake on the construction index which we name an EMD-based event analysis method.