Analysis of the 2015 economic recession on the financial performance of the construction and engineering industry

Abstract

The research aims to analyze whether the economic recession of 2015 has an impact on the performance indicators of the companies that make up the Construction and Engineering Sector in Brazil. The research approach was quantitative and the sample comprised 22 companies analyzed from 2012 to 2017. The data were analyzed using Descriptive Statistics and analysis of the difference between means for paired data (dependent samples) through the application of the Signal Test , which seeks to investigate whether two conditions for the same sample are different. To this end, the companies' accounting and financial indicators were divided into two periods: before the 2015 crisis (period from 2012 to 2014) and after the crisis: (period from 2015 to 2017). The results showed oscillations in all analyzed indicators. However, according to the Signal Test, carried out for the periods before and after the 2015 crisis, only the Income/Expense Ratio, Return on Equity and Dry Liquidity indicators were statistically different. This confirms that the crisis directly affected the companies in the Construction and Engineering Sector analyzed, especially by increasing the proportion of costs in relation to the volume of generated revenues.