Business Commons^™

Opportunity Calls: The Moral Economy During Existential Economic Transition In The Ural Mountains And Appalachia, 1991 - 2008, Nora Springer

Of Life and History

It is often assumed that economists and businessmen act outside of moral constraints, even in times of existential economic crisis. The econometrics of Chubais and Gaidar, as well as the accounting of Deloitte, have all been used to characterize engineers of transition as cold, academic, and removed from reality. However, in both Appalachia and the Urals, mathematics about what will make a profit is inextricable from moral questions of what should make a profit. The goals of economic transition, and ideology about what economic transition should mean, were baked into the calculations of both transitions. Further, the data used to …

The Economy Of Modern Sindh: Opportunities Lost And Lessons For The Future, Ishrat Husain, Aijaz A. Qureshi, Nadeem Hussain

Faculty Research - Books

The Economy of Modern Sindh delves into the different aspects of Sindh’s economy—from geography, topography, climate, administrative history, and demographics, to the political landscape, education, health, labour force and employment, poverty and inequality, agriculture and water issues, infrastructure, industries, energy resources, and public finances—each is covered in a separate chapter. The book highlights the socioeconomic problems that have beset Sindh, arresting the province’s economic potential, and proposes a multi-pronged strategy to address these challenges. It offers an incisive and objective assessment of the various policies enacted and pursued by the Sindh government over the years. It also attempts to identify …

The Rise And Fall (And Rise And Fall) Of The Olympic Games As An Economic Driver, Victor Matheson

Economics Department Working Papers

This paper traces the economic history of major sporting events focusing on the Olympics. Historically, the Olympic Games as well as other major sporting events have been considered costly events that place a burden on host cities. Only in relatively recent years, coinciding with the massive increases in the cost of hosting these events, have event organizers begun to claim that these events bring with them large economic benefits.

Where Is Portland Made? The Complex Relationship Between Social Media And Place In The Artisan Economy Of Portland, Oregon (Usa), Stephen Marotta, Austin Cummings, Charles H. Heying

Urban Studies and Planning Faculty Publications and Presentations

Portland, Oregon (USA) has become known for an artisanal or ‘maker’ economy that relies on a resurgence of place specificity (Heying), primarily expressed and exported to a global audience in the notion of ‘Portland Made’ (Roy). Portland Made reveals a tension immanent in the notion of ‘place’: place is both here and not here, both real and imaginary. What emerges is a complicated picture of how place conceptually captures various intersections of materiality and mythology, aesthetics and economics. On the one hand, Portland Made represents the collective brand-identity used by Portland’s makers to signify a products’ material existence as handcrafted, …

Finanzkapital And Consumers: How Financialization Shaped Twentieth Century Marketing, Nikhilesh Dholakia

Nikhilesh Dholakia

Purpose – By tracing the history of the links of financialization to consumer behaviors and marketer actions in the twentieth century, this paper aims to show that consumer market phenomena are often shaped by the imperatives of finance. Design/methodology/approach – The paper employs selective historical overviews, mainly focusing on the USA, of four tranches of the past century: the run up to the Great Depression; from post-Depression to the Second World War; the post-Second World War Bretton Woods system and its collapse in the 1970s; and the increasingly risk-charged last three post-Bretton Woods decades of the twentieth century. Findings – …

The Relocation Of The International Market For Australian Wool, Simon Ville

Simon Ville

The marketplace for Australian wool relocated from London to the Australian capital cities in the half century after 1880. This represented a major institutional shift that underpinned the development of the Australian economy and made Australia the centre of the international wool market. We analyse the principal demand and supply changes underlying this market shift. Consolidation of worsted manufacturing, demand diversification, improved transport and communications, Australian dominance of international wool production, and the growth of the small grazier shifted the relative market efficiency in favour of Australian auctions.

Social Capital Formation In Australian Rural Communities: The Enhancing Role Of The Stock And Station Agent, Simon Ville

Simon Ville

Evidence from the Australian stock and station agent industry is used to examine several unresolved issues of type and measurement in the social capital literature. Two distinct types of social capital are analysed from the evidence, one being long term and innate to a community, the other variable in the shorter term through individual decisions. The two types are causally linked, innate providing propitious conditions for individual investment conditions. Social capital investment is measured through the proxy of goodwill as revealed in takeover analysis.

Financial Intermediaries And The Design Of Loan Contracts In The Australasian Pastoral Sector Before World War Two, Simon Ville, G. Fleming

Simon Ville

This paper examines the pooling and separating contracts designed by Australasian financial intermediaries in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. We show that after an initial screening process these agents altered interest rates and collateral requirements to separate out risk types to reveal additional information on borrowers. In multi-period contracts agents opted for flexible contract structures which permitted changes in individual or community-wide circumstances.

Comments On Geraghty, Márquez, And Vizcarra, George R. Boyer

George R. Boyer

Professor Boyer reviews and comments upon the three dissertations that were finalists for the Alexander Gerschenkron Prize in 2002.

The Economic Role Of The English Poor Law, 1780-1834, George R. Boyer

George R. Boyer

[Excerpt] Over the 85-year period from 1748/50 to 1832/34, real per capita expenditures on poor relief increased at an average rate of approximately 1 percent per year. There were also important changes in the administration of relief with respect to able-bodied laborers during the period. Policies providing relief outside of workhouses to unemployed and under-employed able-bodied laborers became widespread during the 1770s and 1780s in the grain-producing South and East of England. The so-called Speenhamland system of outdoor relief flourished until 1834, when it was abolished by the Poor Law Amendment Act. The aim of the thesis is to provide …

Finanzkapital And Consumers: How Financialization Shaped Twentieth Century Marketing, Nikhilesh Dholakia

College of Business Faculty Publications

Purpose – By tracing the history of the links of financialization to consumer behaviors and marketer actions in the twentieth century, this paper aims to show that consumer market phenomena are often shaped by the imperatives of finance.

Design/methodology/approach – The paper employs selective historical overviews, mainly focusing on the USA, of four tranches of the past century: the run up to the Great Depression; from post-Depression to the Second World War; the post-Second World War Bretton Woods system and its collapse in the 1970s; and the increasingly risk-charged last three post-Bretton Woods decades of the twentieth century.

Findings – …

Mountain Monitor-3rd Quarter 2011, Mark Muro, Kenan Fikri

Mountain Monitor Quarterly

Economic recovery in the Intermountain West’s major metropolitan areas edged forward in the third quarter of 2011, after idling for much of the year. Nationally, high technology and automotive-oriented metros showed the strongest signs of recovery; in the Intermountain West, manufacturing-intensive and technology-oriented metros had the strongest quarter. Employment and output grew in most metropolitan areas, and the unemployment rate fell throughout the region. At the same time, the housing market freefall came to an end—or at least paused—across most of the region, as home prices ticked upwards for the first time since the Monitor began tracking recession and recovery. …

Mountain Monitor-1st Quarter 2011, Mark Muro, Kenan Fikri, Jonathan Rothwell

Mountain Monitor Quarterly

The pace of economic recovery slowed in the large metros of the Intermountain West in the first quarter of 2011. Widespread but slowing output growth was coupled with much slower improvement in the labor market, where for the first time the region’s unemployment rate edged above the nation’s. The weight of a still-depressed housing market slowed recovery further. Overall, the differing courses of the region’s 10 major metro economies since the beginning of the recession can be characterized by relatively strong bouncebacks to the north and east of the region and more sluggish and protracted slogs to the south and …

Brew To Bikes: Portland's Artisan Economy, Charles H. Heying

Urban Studies and Planning Faculty Publications and Presentations

Brew to Bikes: Portland's Artisan Economy explains how post-industrial economic transformations have created a space for artisan enterprises to flourish. Dissatisfied with passive consumption, many residents of Portland, OR take matters into their own hands. Associate Professor of Urban Studies Charles Heying noticed these local artisans prospering all over the city and set out to study their thriving economy. Profiling hundreds of local businesses, and with an eye on Portland's unique penchant for sustainability and urban development, Brew to Bikes is about everything from bike manufacturers to microbreweries, from do-it-yourself to traditional crafts. A treatise to local, ethical business practices, …

The Relocation Of The International Market For Australian Wool, Simon Ville

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

The marketplace for Australian wool relocated from London to the Australian capital cities in the half century after 1880. This represented a major institutional shift that underpinned the development of the Australian economy and made Australia the centre of the international wool market. We analyse the principal demand and supply changes underlying this market shift. Consolidation of worsted manufacturing, demand diversification, improved transport and communications, Australian dominance of international wool production, and the growth of the small grazier shifted the relative market efficiency in favour of Australian auctions.

Social Capital Formation In Australian Rural Communities: The Enhancing Role Of The Stock And Station Agent, Simon Ville

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

Evidence from the Australian stock and station agent industry is used to examine several unresolved issues of type and measurement in the social capital literature. Two distinct types of social capital are analysed from the evidence, one being long term and innate to a community, the other variable in the shorter term through individual decisions. The two types are causally linked, innate providing propitious conditions for individual investment conditions. Social capital investment is measured through the proxy of goodwill as revealed in takeover analysis.

Transport, Simon Ville

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

This chapter describes the process of transport growth and development in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Britain, including its political, organisational and developmental impact. Transport systems (including communications) move people, goods and information. The large size and capital-intensive nature of transport operations caused unprecedented organisational challenges for companies. The identification of transport as a form of social overhead capital, supporting production across the economy, helps account for its broad-ranging impact on economic development. In this role transport contributed to the efficient allocation of resources over space, thereby promoting competition between producers, and providing information about alternative consumption possibilities to consumers.

Creative Accounting: Are We A 21st Century Greenwich Village?, Michael Mcgregor

Institute of Portland Metropolitan Studies Publications

Examines the rise of the "creative class" in Portland, and attempts to answer the question of what makes Portland alluring to young creative people. Also looks into the economic and social impact of the creative class, and what the future may hold in store, and examines Portland's future as a creative services center.

Financial Intermediaries And The Design Of Loan Contracts In The Australasian Pastoral Sector Before World War Two, Simon Ville, G. Fleming

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

This paper examines the pooling and separating contracts designed by Australasian financial intermediaries in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. We show that after an initial screening process these agents altered interest rates and collateral requirements to separate out risk types to reveal additional information on borrowers. In multi-period contracts agents opted for flexible contract structures which permitted changes in individual or community-wide circumstances.