Construction economics and economics journals

It has been asked whether construction economics has achieved the position of an academic (sub-)discipline. The main question addressed here is if there are signs of a widening gap between construction economics and mainstream economics. Full text searches in three top economics journals and in Construction Management and Economics have been performed, as well as an analysis of how a broader range of economics journals have combined the construction industry topic with other topics. Results include that authors in the three top economics journals never cite articles in Construction Management and Economics, although citations in the opposite direction are frequent. Economics journals in general are found to combine the Journal of Economic Literature L74 code (Construction) mostly with codes from financial economics, macroeconomics and economic development. For 2013–2016, the strongest new combinations with construction are with Firm Behaviour–Empirical Analysis, Accounting and Climate–Natural Disasters and their Management. Finally, the importance for construction economists of access to big data is emphasized.