Was the Construction Sector in 20 European Countries Anti-Cyclical during the Recession Years 2008-2009 as measured by Multicriteria Analysis (MULTIMOORA)?

The thesis of Keynes that public investment may act as a remedy in recession years is well-known. This thesis is examined on basis of the behavior of different criteria measuring the construction sector during the recession years 2008-2009 for 20 European Countries. Dining these recession years all these criteria showed a pro-cyclical movement instead of an anti-cyclical one. MULTIMOORA, a multi-objective optimization method, aggregated the different criteria. In addition knowing that public investments, in fact public works, take a long time between decision and execution one may conclude that they are not an anti-cyclical instrument in recession years. It would mean that the thesis of Keynes is wrong. (C) 2014 Published by Elsevier B.V. Open access under CC BY-NC-ND license.