The rise, fall, and transformation of overseas construction contracting

Abstract

A transformed international industry for exporting construction services has emerged from events associated with the oil shocks of 1973–1983. The market is mainly in developing countries, but LDC contractors have themselves been last-in and first-out as exporters. State financial support in various forms best explains the rise of Japanese, French, and Italian exporters. Among the displaced were American firms, except perhaps temporarily for the largest whose scale and technological lead with data processing gave them enough flexibility to be vertically integrated in some fields and to specialize in other tasks as designers, construction managers, joint venture partners, and in other roles. They were no longer ordinary construction firms with some sites abroad.