An Ethical Production of Place:A Case for Economy in Architectural Design

Architects typically interpret Heidegger to mean that dwelling in the Black Forest, was more authentic than living in an industrialised society however we cannot turn back the clock so we are confronted with the reality of modernisation. Since the Second World War production has shifted from material to immaterial assets. Increasingly place is believed to offer resistance to this fluidity, but this belief can conversely be viewed as expressing a sublimated anxiety about our role in the world – the need to create buildings that are self-consciously contextual suggests that we may no longer be rooted in material places, but in immaterial relations.
This issue has been pondered by David Harvey in his paper From Place to Space and Back Again where he argues that the role of place in legitimising identity is ultimately a political process, as the interpretation of its meaning is dependent on whose interpretation it is. Doreen Massey has found that different classes of people are more or less mobile and that mobility is related to class and education rather than to nationality or geography. These thinkers point to a different set of questions than the usual space/place divide – how can we begin to address the economic mediation of spatial production to develop an ethical production of place? Part of the answer is provided by the French architectural practice Lacaton Vassal in their book Plus. They ask themselves how to produce more space for the same cost so that people can enjoy a better quality of life. Another French practitioner, Patrick Bouchain, has argued that architect’s fees should be inversely proportional to the amount of material resources that they consume. These approaches use economics as a starting point for generating architectural form and point to more ethical possibilities for architectural practice

“ Humanitarian Competition: An Intellectual History in Perspective”.

Competition has become the mantra for survival in a globalised world where meaningful existence is fraught with demands, which go beyond the material to the immaterial ‘byte-size’. This has been exemplified by our obsession with illusions of immediate fame and fortune. This paper contextualises and extends the debate about the role of competition in general. Here the four major myths of competition are explored and deconstructed, from a Darwinian perspective to a more demonstrably engaged perspective on ‘capabilities’ (Sen, 1999). The second section deals particularly with the key debates, theories that influenced Tsunesaburo Makiguchi’s seminal ideas of ‘humanitarian competition’ in 1903. The final part of the paper seeks to decipher the relevance of the key ideas of ‘humanitarian competition’ as proposed by Dr Daisaku Ikeda in his 2009 peace proposal. Here the transition from competition to cooperation is explored by tying together the key principles of global coexistence enunciated by both Makiguchi and Ikeda in the context of expanding spiritual influence by the forces of culture, morality and virtue. To engage with humanitarian competition calls for a major shift from hard power to soft power, from subordination to one of engagement. In other words this concept advances the Buddhist principle of peaceful co-existence, or Panchsheel, as a norm for human behaviour of love, kindness, sacrifice and peace through cooperation, where equality and mutual benefit are critical. Humanitarian competition provides the essential framework to establish a new world order as highlighted by both Makiguchi and Ikeda.

Down with MNE-centric theories! Market entry and expansion as the bundling of MNE and local assets

Both Anderson and Gatignon and the Uppsala internationalization model see the initial mode of foreign market entry and subsequent modes of operation as unilaterally determined by multinational enterprises (MNEs) arbitraging control and risk and increasing their commitment as they gain experience in the target market. OLI and internalization models do recognize that foreign market entry requires the bundling of MNE and complementary local assets, which they call location or country-specific advantages, but implicitly assume that those assets are freely accessible to MNEs. In contrast to both of these MNE-centric views, I explicitly consider the transactional characteristics of complementary local assets and model foreign market entry as the optimal assignment of equity between their owners and MNEs. By looking at the relative efficiency of the different markets in which MNE and complementary local assets are traded, and at how these two categories of assets match, I am able to predict whether equity will be held by MNEs or by local firms, or shared between them, and whether MNEs will enter through greenfields, brownfields, or acquisitions. The bundling model I propose has interesting implications for the evolution of the MNE footprint in host countries, and for the reasons behind the emergence of Dragon MNEs.

Fairness in Ancillary Relief

This article stems from setting student projects. It describes in detail the outcome of a project designed to ascertain the views of the public in relation to ancillary relief and what they consider to be a 'fair' outcome. The rationale for undertaking student projects has been discussed at length in another article and is therefore only alluded to here. The discussion centres around the law, findings and outcome of the project. Students studying the Family Law course at Sheffield University were required to survey members of the public in order to gather their views on the division of assets on divorce and then to analyse the public's response in light of the seminal decision of the House of Lords in White v White [2001] 1 AC 596.

The death blow to unlimited liability in Victorian Britain: The City of Glasgow failure

In 1878, one of Britain's largest banks, the City of Glasgow Bank, collapsed, leaving a huge deficit between its assets and liabilities. As this bank, similar to many other contemporary British banks, had unlimited liability, its failure was accompanied by the bankruptcy of the vast majority of its stockholders. It is generally believed that the collapse of this depository institution revealed the extent to which ownership in large joint-stock banks had been diffused to investors of very modest means. It is also believed that the failure resulted in bank shareholders dumping their shares unto the market. Our evidence, garnered from ownership records, trading data, and stock prices, offers no support for these widely held beliefs. © 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Bio-folio: applying portfolio theory to biodiversity

Genes, species and ecosystems are often considered to be assets. The need to ensure a sufficient diversity of this asset is being increasingly recognised today. Asset managers in banks and insurance companies face a similar challenge. They are asked to manage the assets of their investors by constructing efficient portfolios. They deliberately make use of a phenomenon observed in the formation of portfolios: returns are additive, while risks diversify. This phenomenon and its implications are at the heart of portfolio theory. Portfolio theory, like few other economic theories, has dramatically transformed the practical work of banks and insurance companies. Before portfolio theory was developed about 50 years ago, asset managers were confronted with a situation similar to the situation the research on biodiversity faces today. While the need for diversification was generally accepted, a concept that linked risk and return on a portfolio level and showed the value of diversification was missing. Portfolio theory has closed this gap. This article first explains the fundamentals of portfolio theory and transfers it to biodiversity. A large part of this article is then dedicated to some of the implications portfolio theory has for the valuation and management of biodiversity. The last section introduces three development openings for further research.

Localization in Sardinia and Its Obstacles: A Reply to Hospers’ “Localization in Europe’s Periphery: Tourism Development in Sardinia”

In this reply to Hospers' “Localization in Europe's Periphery: Tourism Development in Sardinia” by Gert-Jan Hospers (2003), we argue that the author's advocacy of localized economic policies as a viable means to the economic development of Sardinia does not take into account current institutional assets that prevent Sardinia from pursuing localized interests effectively. We first discuss the historical background of these institutional assets, highlighting that a top-down approach to decision-making has characterized relations between Sardinia and the central state for most of the modern era. We then discuss the institutional and economic impediments to Sardinian attempts to pursue localized policies in light of recent institutional conflicts between region and central state. Our conclusion is that the localization of economic strategies necessitates entwined localization of decision-making powers in order to be effective.

Which Credit Unions are Acquired?

Recent years have witnessed a wave of consolidation amongst US credit unions. Through hazard function estimations, this paper identifies the determinants of acquisition for credit unions during the period 2001-06. The hazard of acquisition is inversely related to both asset size and profitability, and positively related to liquidity. Growth-constrained credit unions are less attractive acquisition targets. Institutions with low capitalization and those with small loans portfolios relative to total assets are susceptible to acquisition. The investigation presents unique empirical evidence of a link between technological capability and the hazard of acquisition. During the period 2001-06, when there was sustained growth in the use of internet technology, credit unions with no website were at the highest risk of acquisition. © Springer Science + Business Media, LLC 2009.

China's Sovereign Wealth Funds: Problem or Panacea?

China’s impressive economic growth has led to the accumulation of massive financial assets. The emergence of sovereign wealth funds (SWFs), as a governmental investment device for its excessive foreign reserves, symbolizes a major rebalancing of economic power. With its investment portfolios drastically diversified for well-established financial institutions as well as some strategic sectors, a seminal debate seems centered on whether China’s SWFs are in furtherance of purely commercial or geopolitically strategic purposes. Under the sophisticated hard laws associated with international initiatives, it is unlikely that the SWFs-related investment would distort the global financial system, and genuinely threaten national security, which assumption may only exist at a hypothetical level. The potential protectionism would inevitably retard the world economy’s recovery, were it not to be proportionately addressed. A most significant necessity appears to be to strike a proportionate balance between sustaining the credibility of open investment environment and efficiently minimizing implications of SWFs political arenas.

Dynamic Density Forecasts for Multivariate Asset Returns

We propose a simple and flexible framework for forecasting the joint density of asset returns. The multinormal distribution is augmented with a polynomial in (time-varying) non-central co-moments of assets. We estimate the coefficients of the polynomial via the Method of Moments for a carefully selected set of co-moments. In an extensive empirical study, we compare the proposed model with a range of other models widely used in the literature. Employing a recently proposed as well as standard techniques to evaluate multivariate forecasts, we conclude that the augmented joint density provides highly accurate forecasts of the “negative tail” of the joint distribution.

The use of process simulation methods in support of organisational learning in availability contracting

Traditional business models in the aerospace industry are based on a conventional supplier to customer relationship based on the design, manufacture and subsequent delivery of the physical product. Service provision, from the manufacturer's perspective, is typically limited to the supply of procedural documentation and the provision of spare parts to the end user as the product passes through the latter stages of its intended lifecycle. Challenging economic and political conditions have resulted in end users re-structuring their core business activities, particularly in the defence sector. This has resulted in the need for original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) to integrate and manage support service activities in partnership with the customer to deliver platform availability. This improves the probability of commercial sustainability for the OEM through shared operational risks while reducing the cost of platform ownership for the customer. The need for OEMs to evolve their design, manufacture and supply strategies by focusing on customer requirements has revealed a need for reconstruction of traditional internal behaviours and design methodologies. Application of organisational learning is now a well recognised principle for innovative companies to achieve long term growth and sustained technical development, and hence, greater market command. It focuses on the process by which the organisation's knowledge and value base changes, leading to improved problem solving ability and capacity for action. From the perspective of availability contracting, knowledge and the processes by which it is generated, used and retained, become primary assets within the learning organisation. This paper will introduce the application of digital methods to asset management by demonstrating how the process of learning can benefit from a digital approach, how product and process design can be integrated within a virtual framework and finally how the approach can be applied in a service context.