Economic Development Corporation Research Articles

Are government‐linked construction companies in Malaysia still valid? The indigenous contractors' perspective

Despite privatization, many government‐linked companies (GLCs) still continue to operate in Malaysia. Many have objectives that include the redressing of ethnic economic imbalance. Government‐linked construction companies (GLCCs) were created within these larger public groups. A study was conducted to explore whether the GLCCs are still valid in Malaysia's present construction industry scenario, and if not, what actions should be taken in respect of them. Four aspects (i.e. social obligation, competitiveness, efficiency and income generation) were looked into. To answer the research questions, the viewpoints of ‘A’ Class bumiputera contractors were solicited which were then investigated on four GLCCs, three belonging to state economic development corporations (SEDCs) and one to a land development agency (LDA). The exploratory study found that three case study GLCCs have limited public value. This paper concludes by recommending changes that should be made to them. There is much that policy makers in developing countries with GLCCs can learn from the Malaysian experience. At the very least, it underscores the need to assess their raison d'être periodically. This study also hopes to encourage other scholars to look into a much under‐researched area—that of a particular set of actors commonly created to promote local construction industry development.

"The case for clean indoor air"

In 2004, a Tsunami in South Asia killed more than 180,000 people and the world recoiled in shock and disbelief. In 2005 an earthquake in Pakistan killed close to 100,000 and the world was devastated. These are truly terrible disasters that continue to claim lives, and we are rightly horrified by their scope and scale.

Are Local Economic Development Incentives Promoting Job Growth? An Empirical Case Study

At a time when cities are competing with one another to attract or retain jobs within a globalizing economy, city governments are providing an array of financial incentives to stimulate job growth and retain existing jobs, particularly in high cost locations. This paper provides the first systematic and comprehensive analysis of datasets on economic development incentives in New York City over the last fifteen years. The evidence on job retention and creation is mixed. Although many companies do not meet their agreed-upon job targets in absolute terms, the evidence suggests that companies receiving subsidies outperform their respective industries in terms of employment growth, that is, the grow more, or decline less. We emphasize that this finding is difficult to interpret, since firms receiving incentives may not be representative of the industry as a whole. In other words, their above-average performance may simply reflect the fact that the Economic Development Corporation (EDC) selects economically promising companies within manufacturing (or other industries) when granting incentives. At the same time, it is also possible that receiving incentives helps these companies to become stronger.

Contradictions Between Aims and Practice in Community Economic Development: The Case of New Dawn Enterprises

ABSTRACT In Atlantic Canada, community economic development (ced) and community development corporations (cdcs) in particular have gained legitimacy as tools for development in economically depressed communities. This paper examines the structure and activities of Canada's oldest cdc, New Dawn Enterprises Limited, located in industrial Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. The paper argues that the case of New Dawn demonstrates that ced practice often contradicts its aims, that ced organizations like New Dawn are dependent on a weak economy and government subsidy for their profitability, and that the only method they recognize is the capitalist method.

Mental Illness Doesn’t Deter Future Entrepreneurs

Mental Illness Doesn’t Deter Future Entrepreneurs

The Role of Multinational Corporations in Economic & Social Development of Poor Countries: Leading Toward a Better World?

Global corporations have a key role to play in issues ranging from human rights to environmental policies. Specifically, corporations can be most effective in helping the poor by investing in local and global communities on a long-term basis rather than by acting as charities or aid agencies. However, to do so, corporations must restore the public's trust. They must demonstrate that their presence, particularly in poorer countries and the emerging market economies, is a source of human progress. They must demonstrate that globalisation is not a zero-sum game in which the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. In this regard, those who argue against globalisation are denying 1.5 billion people, who live in absolute poverty, the means of escape. To do nothing is morally unacceptable. The world is watching the corporate sector. This is a moment of great challenge, but also of great opportunity because if corporations can demonstrate that they are agents of progress, they can remove the doubts and renew the trust that is essential for both prosperity and security.

LEVERAGING RESOURCES THROUGH STRATEGIC ALLIANCES FOR WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT

The Michigan Technical Education Center (M-TEC) at Bay de Noc Community College is leading the way in workforce development for Michigan's Upper Peninsula. By leveraging resources through strategic alliances with industry, government, labor, and education, the M-TEC has become a powerful tool for training solutions. A March 1998 State of Michigan initiative sought applications from community colleges interested in a no more business as usual approach to technical skills training. The Michigan Economic Development Corporation (MEDC) awarded the M-TEC construction grant to Bay College in January 1999; groundbreaking took place in May 1999 and the center was dedicated in March 2000. The M-TEC concept - anytime, anywhere, customized training - proved itself through dramatic first-year increases in the number of workers trained (89%), total training hours (90% ), and MEDC training grant funds (500%). This has been accomplished in part through the impressive variety of resources the M-TEC leveraged from its strategic alliances. The M-TEC's sustaining partners, a group that has doubled in size after 1 year of operation (i.e., from 9 to 18), have increased the capacity of the center, even as they have contributed to its operation's budget. Equipment the center could not afford is now in use because the supplier wants its local customers to have access to it - and because the center could provide the training laboratories to house it. Dedicated computer laboratories make workforce training simple, with resources always available when needed by business and industry. The M-TEC is generating multiple revenue streams through nontraditional means to meet the state s 5-year mandate of self-sufficiency.

Neighborhood Business Development in Dempsey

J im knew he needed to concentrate his resources. He had arrived at the Dempsey Economic Development Corporation (DEDC) over a year earlier full of excitement. After his first job as an assistant program manager at a local development corporation in neighboring Giant City, he had been hired by the DEDC to create a new, citywide commercial revitalization program for Dempsey, a city of nearly a quarter million people. The DEDC's executive director, Brendan Grace, was a supportive boss. Like Jim, he believed that Dempsey could really benefit from some of the latest approaches to neighborhood economic development. But, after more than a year of working long hours, Jim had nothing concrete to show for his efforts, there were still too many worthy potential initiatives and competing priorities to address all at once, and he needed to show some results quickly. And, although Jim knew that a professional public servant should be above partisan politics, elections were coming up. If the administration changed, his entire program was likely to be canceled or dramatically changed. What should I do first, and how can I balance electoral politics with my professional priorities? Jim mused. Or should I just bail out of Dempsey and take a safe job in the bureaucracy back in Giant City? The city of Dempsey was in many ways awakening from a decades-long slumber. Once a major industrial and port city, Dempsey had fallen on hard times along with most of the surrounding area as much of the middle class moved to the suburbs, manufacturers moved away, and trucks replaced railroads. But now, there were signs of change and promise for the future. The exploding real estate market in Giant City had encouraged commercial and residential development in the parts of Dempsey and its neighboring towns that were near stations on the light rail lines leading into Giant City. New office towers and condominiums were going up, and the prices of apartments and houses in the Central Square and Downtown sections of Dempsey were skyrocketing as those neighborhoods gentrified. Long-time residents were glad for the promise of economic renewal, but many of them also resented the commuting newcomers, who

Assessment of Market Demand for Cross-Harbor Rail Freight Service in the New York Metropolitan Region

An investment study sponsored by the New York City Economic Development Corporation with Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991 funds evaluated strategies for improving the movement of freight by rail to an 11-county subregion (including New York City) of the New York and northern New Jersey metropolitan area located east of the Hudson River. The major achievements of the process were the use of choice modeling techniques to understand the decision making of shippers and, in combination with other data sources, forecasting the demand for freight infrastructure investments. The methodologies described are applicable to the study of freight transportation investment strategies in many settings. The key finding of the analysis is that a rail freight tunnel would increase rail mode share relative to other alternatives and the so-called No Build case. The subregion east of the Hudson contains two-thirds of the region’s population, but it is at a significant disadvantage in the movement of freight relative to the subregion west of the Hudson. Rail accounts for only 2.8 percent of all the subregion’s shipments, compared to 15 percent within the subregion west of the Hudson. Two limited rail crossings of the Hudson River provide access to New York City and the rest of the east subregion. These conditions affect the level of truck traffic and air pollution within the subregion, the subregion’s overall economic competitiveness, and the viability of its port facilities. To address these concerns, four families of alternatives that could improve cross-harbor rail freight service were analyzed. Discussed is how the market demand for these alternatives was analyzed by linking six distinct methodologies and data sets: ( a) regional economic forecasts, ( b) commodity flow data, ( c) a modal diversion model, ( d) regional port forecasts, ( e) a regional travel demand forecasting model, and ( f) user benefit calculation models.

Contested Needs: Shifting the Standpoint on Rural Economic Development

Economic restructuring is reshaping the lives of rural residents in the U.S. In response to these changes, small towns are attempting to generate economic development strategies that would increase their economic viability. This article contrasts perspectives on community-based economic development held by white North European-American women factory workers with members of the Economic Development Corporations in two rural towns in southwest Iowa. Drawing upon a multidimensional standpoint analysis and Nancy Fraser's ''politics of needs interpretation,'' I argue for broadening the constituency for community-based accounts of economic development in order to contest dominant interpretations of needs that typify contemporary approaches.

Economic Restructuring and the Restructuring of Economic Development Practice: A New York Perspective, 1985-1995

The economic development forces that caused regional economies in the United States to restructure also triggered a change in the practice of economic development at the local level to accommodate those forces. This article provides a reflection on the ways in which the scope and practice of economic development changed from 1985 to 1995 in western New York State. Over the decade, practice moved away from concern about equity and poverty in older urban cores, largely funded by the federal government, to a regional focus on business development and retention that depended on multiple streams offending that were dominated by state and local spending, and private sector participation. The Western New York Economic Development Corporation was an agency established to address development in this new environment.

Defining the Role of Nonprofit Corporations in Community Economic Development

In this paper we outline the unique nonmarket and market functions nonprofit corporations perform in the local economy that are important to community economic development. Their key nonmarket functions include the provision of cultural and environmental amenities, stimulus of community development and entrepreneurial activity in the most economically distressed communities, and delivery of numerous human welfare services. Each of these functions enhances the quality of life factors for its residents. A positive spinoff is that as the community becomes a more desirable place to live, location decisions of households and business enterprises are influenced. As for market functions, nonprofit corporations supply essential services which are treated as inputs into the business production process, attract income into the community or region through sales of services to residents outside the community, attract grants and loans that contribute to the circular flow of income in the community, and facilitate seco...

Research Note: The Emergence of American Indian Enterprise

We are in the early stages of what may become a dramatic transformation in economic development among Native Americans. Tribal enterprises, individual entrepreneurs, and reservation economic development corporations are beginning to attract and generate new capital and to offer hope of greater economic independence and prosperity for this sector of our society. This note presents an introduction to the characteristics of entrepreneurship and family enterprise in the Native American population.

Hollow Promises: Rhetoric and Reality in the Inner City

Part 1 Policies: rhetoric and reality hollow promises? issues and agendas in the inner city Merseyside development corporation, 1981-1989 physical regeneration, accountability and economic challenge London docklands development corporation re-investment in residential neighbourhoods the theory and practice of inner city programmes. Part 2 Misconceptions: urban social change, salvation and gentrification gentrification and regeneration women, gender relations and the inner city skills do not equal jobs current misconceptions in tackling unemployment. Part 3 Alternative realities: towards an alternative politics of the inner city the financial explosion and the community control of capital in Baltimore black working clas entrepreneurship in Jamaica and the United Kingdom those French inner cities comparative comments on the urban crisis in Britain and France.

The Transformation of Antebellum Patent Law

Inventors, purchasers of patent rights, and users of patented goods all have economic interests in framing and interpretation of patent law. These interests often conflict, for all participants in complex economic, legal, and political game of patent system seek to maximize return from their investment of creativity and capital. Winners and losers are determined by their changing economic and political power and by changing ideologies of technology and economic growth. The patent law we know today is result of endless squabbling and political compromises. In first half of 19th century, years when American patent system took form, these groups fought over wording of patent laws and way in which law should be interpreted. Changing beliefs about value of economic development and role of technology, private property, and corporations in economic development affected law. Changes in nature of law played a role, too, as did belief in efficacy of law as a solution to economic conflict. The outcome of battle of patent law was its transformation into a system that encouraged technological invention that could turn a profit and that increased usefulness and value of patents for American industry. George M. Armstrong has called this comrmodification of inventive ideas and suggests that it was part of rise of market culture that started in 17th century.' The 19th century was a time of legal dynamism. Congress, state legislatures, and courts were bold about using law to promote ends they thought worthwhile. Willard Hurst writes that the 19th century was prepared to treat law as an instrument to be used wherever it looked as if it would be useful. Where legal regulation or compulsion might promote greater release of individual or group

Activisme et contre-pouvoirs dans la ville américaine

Countervailing power in US cities. Traditions of localism and reforms of decentralization have given means of action and political experience. Community control has given way to a neighborhood movement, as shown in grass-roots coalitions (NEA, ACORN) which operate in many states and at the national level, or in former militant organizations, now service-oriented or turned into economic development corporations by the State. The Reagan administration has recommended the creation of urban entreprise zones in poor neighborhoods, with little success. In fact, the conservative revolution has been unable to stop the attraction of the grass-roots movement ; on the contrary, it seems to foster it. New registration drives and rainbow coalitions, rooted in poor neighborhoods, attempt to gather all the victims of Reaganomics. Will they succeed ?