Previous Booms Research Articles

Boom and bust: Variegated livelihood pathways among rural households in the banana boom in northern Laos

Crop booms are a significant driver of change for both rural landscapes and smallholder livelihoods. Cavendish bananas have boomed in northern Laos and replaced maize, the previous boom crop, through land leasing contracts between farmers and Chinese companies. This study of two villages in Oudomxay Province explores rural households' participation in this banana boom and the conjunctures that shape variegated livelihood pathways and outcomes. Household participation in the banana boom depended on their assets (land and labour), livelihood context and social pressure. Household income in both villages generally improved, but differentially. The better‐off, and those with a wider array of livelihood options, used income from bananas to move to primarily non‐agricultural livelihoods, while many poorer households became dependent on wage labour in banana production, at the expense of their health. Women reported to be content to escape agricultural labour through land leasing; but many who contributed labour to banana production felt trapped in ongoing heavy labour, with attendant adverse impacts. These outcomes reflect how the conjunctures of different household, community and external elements, and crop boom‐bust cycles, lead to differentiated (‘variegated’) household livelihood trajectories and outcomes for households and for men and women, and suggest points of policy intervention.

Crop booms as regime shifts.

A crop boom is a sudden, nonlinear and intense expansion of a new crop. Despite their large impacts, boom-bust dynamics are not well understood; booms are largely unpredictable and difficult to steer once they unfold. Based on the striking resemblances between land regime shifts and crop booms, we apply complex systems theory, highlighting the potential for regime shifts, to provide new insights about crop boom dynamics. We analyse qualitative and quantitative data of rubber and banana plantation expansion in two forest frontier regions of northern Laos. We show that preconditions, including previous booms, explain the occurrence (why) of booms, and triggers like policy and market changes explain their timing (when). Yet, the most important features of booms, their intensity and nonlinearity (how), strongly depended on internal self-reinforcing feedbacks. We identify built-in feedbacks (neighbourhood effects and imitation) and emergent feedbacks (land rush) and show that they were social in nature, multi-scale from plot to region and subject to thresholds. We suggest that these are regular features of booms and propose a definition and causal-mechanistic explanation of crop booms, examining the overlap between booms and regime shifts and the role of frontiers. We then identify opportunities for management interventions before, during and after booms.

Muddled Times: Temporality and Gold Mining in Colombia and Venezuela

In current social theorising there is a burgeoning interest in the ‘afterlife’ of resource extraction. In this chapter, we maintain that while the assumption of a post-extractive afterlife might grasp certain social and extractive dynamics of mining areas, it is not necessarily indicative of how people in mining sites themselves conceive of being in time. To this end, we explore how different temporal experiences coincide and converge with one another in two informal gold-mining regions in Colombia and Venezuela. In particular, we reveal that during our fieldwork in these regions the extractive present was imagined as an afterlife and/or a thing of the past. In other words, miners who were extracting in the present nevertheless experienced and described their work through tropes of anteriority (of being stuck in an earlier time) and posteriority (of being stuck after history). In the gold rush of the Venezuelan Arco Minero region, miners encountered their ongoing mining practices as if having descended into a messy hereafter they had never imagined becoming part of. In the Colombian Chocó region, residents of post-boom towns and villages returned to pre-boom extractive practices, and described these practices as the tragic aftermath of a rich gold rush, while simultaneously relating them to pre-boom years of poverty. We couple both cases to highlight how lived experiences in present-day gold country cannot be analysed without considering previous booms and busts, as one resource frontier’s life is often another frontier’s afterlife. We present ‘muddled times’ as an alternative way to conceive of the temporality of the gold mine.

Changing Supply Elasticities and Regional Housing Booms

AbstractDevelopments in U.S. house prices over the past decade mirror those of the 1996–2006 boom. Construction activity has, however, been weak. Using data for 254 U.S. metropolitan areas, we show that housing supply elasticities have fallen markedly in recent years. We find that housing supply elasticities have declined more in areas in which land‐use regulation has tightened the most, and in areas that experienced the sharpest housing busts. Consistent with the declining housing supply elasticities, we find that monetary policy shocks have had a stronger effect on house prices during the past decade than during the previous boom. At the same time, building permits respond less.

Petroleum Engineering Continues To Drop, But There Is Talk of Better Times Ahead

For the seventh year in a row, the number of undergraduates in petroleum engineering (PE) programs is down, but that could be changing. Over the next year, Lloyd Heinze, a PE professor at Texas Tech University who has long done the survey discussed here, sees this downward trend slowing and then stabilizing in the next couple of years. There is no sure way to predict which majors undergraduates will pick, but there are some long-standing patterns to consider. Based on past long slumps for US programs, the decline line is nearing a point where it stabilizes at a low level for years, and when the industry lives off the surge in PE graduates that occurred during the previous boom years. But there is another trend that could change things. There has always been a strong relationship between class sizes and the preceding increases in oil price. The recent surge in oil prices to more than $90/bbl could signal a rebound, as it did early this century when it helped end the slump that dated back to the 1980s. If those two trends apply, it could mean “there will be fewer bachelor’s degrees awarded this year, and after that we will be back to growing ever so slightly. And then 2 years from now we will be overwhelmed,” by new students, Heinze said. So far, the survey is not offering evidence of a change from the down trend. The best indicator of the size of future graduation classes is the level of undergraduate enrollment. During the slide down, the number of seniors has been far greater than the number of freshmen. This year’s class shows that gap has narrowed. To stabilize it, the number of freshmen will need to far exceed the size of the senior class because another pattern is at work. Heinze said the number of freshmen and sophomores who say they will major in petroleum engineering drops by 30% per class year as these students realize what is required, which includes proficiency in calculus. Hiring Drives Enrollment While it is hard to deny the power of higher oil prices to increase oil industry activity, Heinze and others in academia contacted for this story point out that the ultimate driver is the industry’s appetite for new engineers. Students and their parents are looking for signs that the hard and costly job of getting a PE degree is rewarded with a job and a salary that justifies the effort. So far, those in PE programs are seeing an improved job market with demand for the graduates they are supplying. When Texas A&M announced a spring job fair, there was a strong response from potential employers, said Tom Blasingame, a professor of petroleum engineering at Texas A&M and 2021 SPE president. He said the market is much improved for students seeking jobs, but it is not like the boom days when multiple offers were common. “I do not believe that oil prices are going to help us significantly in increasing the enrollment,” said Mohan Kelkar, chairman of the McDougall School of Petroleum Engineering at the University of Tulsa, who sees oil companies sticking to conservative spending programs.

Powerless in a Western US Energy Town: Exploring Challenges to Socially Sustainable Rural Development

To better understand social sustainability in the context of rapid boom growth and decline, we examine longitudinal social change in the modern boomtown of Colstrip, MT. Using a mixed-methods approach that includes two waves of a community survey—administered in 1996 and 2018, respectively—and focus groups conducted in 2018–2019, we explore shifts in residents’ sense of community as well as their perceptions and attitudes about current challenges to their community’s future and sustainability. We show that, despite surviving previous boom and bust periods related to changes in the coal industry, this community now faces a new reality that involves the closure of all local power plants. However, both survey responses and residents’ narratives indicate a strong sense of community and support for developing strategies that address challenges to the town’s future. This exploratory case study helps to extend the literature by contributing to a greater understanding of the experiences of contemporary workers who individually migrated to a small, rural energy town but who now, as a community, face an uncertain future, and by illuminating the role of sense of community in both social and environmental sustainability efforts.

Changing Supply Elasticities and Regional Housing Booms

Recent developments in US house prices mirror those of the 1996–2006 boom, but the recovery in construction activity has been weak. Using data for 254 US metropolitan areas, we show that housing supply elasticities have fallen markedly in recent years. Consistent with this, we find that monetary policy shocks have a stronger effect on house prices during the recent recovery than the previous boom. At the same time, building permits respond less. Finally, we find that housing supply elasticities have declined more in areas where land-use regulation has tightened the most, and in areas that experienced the sharpest housing busts.

Evolutionary Path of Development of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Patterns of Knowledge Convergence over the Second and Third AI Booms

<p align="left">Although AI was coined by John McCarthy 60 years ago, AI has been confined to the academic and scientific research domain. AI has been through several booms and we have currently reached the 3rd AI boom which followed the 2nd AI boom centering mainly on expert systems. The current AI boom started around 2013 and AI is beginning to affect corporate management and operations. AI has been evolving over six decades but it seems that the current boom is different from the previous booms. </p><p align="left">In this paper, we attempt to elucidate the evolutionary path of development of AI and the structural patterns of knowledge convergence in the current and previous booms.</p><p align="left">For this purpose we have set 2 main objectives</p><p>1) To characterize the first (1B), second (2B) and the current, third (3B) AI boom</p><p>2) To analyze the structure of knowledge convergence around AI</p><p>RQ How have the key technologies and the applications of AI changed over time, in the 2B and the 3B?</p><p align="left"> An innovative method has been used to identify the characteristics of AI and the evolutionary path of knowledge convergence over the booms.</p>

Миссионерская деятельность религиозных объединений в Омской области в оценках населения и экспертного сообщества региона

The research analyzes the views of the population and expert community on the missionary activity of religious associations in Omsk region. Based on the results of a comprehensive sociological study on this issue conducted in late 2018 – early 2019, the author argues that present-day missions are an insignificant factor in the development of religious identity among residents of the region. Moreover, there is a decline in missionary activity in the territory under review. Trends observed depend on both the stringent state religious policy that has taken place over the past few years and the dominance of secular intentions in the regional community notwithstanding the previous boom for missions. Although the majority of people declare their particular religious affiliation, there is a lack of interest in religion and missionary preaching in Omsk region. At the same time, the society faces a revival of traditional mechanisms of belief reproduction related to family education in the first place. Such a harmonious involvement in religious traditions of the family and people reduces the society’s vulnerability to influences of alien denominations.

FOREIGN BANKS IN TRANSITION ECONOMIES IN THE CONTEXT OF THE GLOBAL CRISIS: CURRENT TRENDS, RISK PROFILES AND IMPACT SPECIFICITY ON SYSTEMIC STABILITY

Ponte Academic JournalJun 2019, Volume 75, Issue 6 FOREIGN BANKS IN TRANSITION ECONOMIES IN THE CONTEXT OF THE GLOBAL CRISIS: CURRENT TRENDS, RISK PROFILES AND IMPACT SPECIFICITY ON SYSTEMIC STABILITYAuthor(s): Fahri Murshudli ,Roman Kornyliuk, Erkin DilbaziJ. Ponte - Jun 2019 - Volume 75 - Issue 6 doi: 10.21506/j.ponte.2019.6.9 Abstract:Our paper investigates foreign banks impact on financial stability in transition countries during the boom-bust cycles, especially their contribution to the evolution and realization of systemic risk.The purpose of this study is to carry out theoretical pros and cons of foreign banks presence in post-soviet countries based on empirical evidence from their activity and risk profiles under different economic conditions and regulatory regimes. A comprehensive retrospective study of global bank capital entries into transition economies, reasons of foreign capital outflows and the dynamics of banks key financial indicators was carried out, as well as a comparative analysis of foreign versus local bank groups due to systemic financial sustainability.\\\\r\\\\nThe results of this study indicatethat foreign banks appeared more solvent during economic crises in transition countriesin comparison with local private banks, despite great financial losses and required capitalization. The differences in default levels and response to the crisis among foreign and local banks were found. Instead of cross-border contagion channel strengthening, foreign banks presence, higher customer loyalty and capital support from parent institutions reduced deposit outflows and smoothed the potential impact of financial instability during the crises. On the contrary, the need of modern early warning monitoring system of foreign banking still exists because of possible rise of concentration and potential non-financial risks related to geopolitical motives and strengthening of compliance requirements.\\\\r\\\\nMain findings of empirical analysis contribute to a deeper understanding of the ownership influence on the systemic risk formation in theCEE and post-soviet banking sectors during the previous booms and crises. Grounded on the empirical data analysis, important patterns in cross-border funding and systemic risk channels were found. It allows to forecast properlyfuture benefits and risks of foreign bank presence in transition countries for regulatory and business purposes. Download full text:Check if you have access through your login credentials or your institution Username Password

Modelling Regional Housing Prices in Spain

We estimate the long-run relationship between real housing prices of new dwellings and their fundamentals in a panel of the 50 Spanish provinces between 1985 and 2018. We find a cointegrating relationship between real house prices and per capita real income, unemployment rate and demographic density. According to our estimates, house prices were above their long-run equilibrium values in most provinces in 2007, during the peak of the previous boom, but there was substantial heterogeneity in the size of this gap. At the end of 2018 house prices were slightly below their estimated long-run equilibrium values in most provinces, but a few of them exhibited moderate positive deviations from those levels. Our results highlight the importance of modelling house prices at the regional level, as aggregate results may hide important heterogeneous developments.

Rio Tinto's Ore Mining: Making Hay from Water

When the Rio Tinto mining company decided to increase its output of iron ore by 25% in its Marandoo location, it had to deal with an unexpected problem: an excess of water in the deep reaches of the mine. Because freshwater is a scarce resource in this region of Australia, Rio Tinto's challenge was to come up with a comprehensive water strategy for the region. This case is used in Darden's Economics of course elective. Excerpt UVA-GEM-0130 Rev. Aug. 17, 2016 Rio Tinto's Ore Mining: Making Hay from Water When contemplating Rio Tinto's phase-two plans for the Marandoo mine in Western Australia, one could only be reminded of Tom Albanese, former CEO of Rio Tinto, and his outspoken view that for Rio Tinto, water was a strategic issue and first and foremost an enabler for mining. In one of the driest places on Earth, the second-largest iron ore producer was grappling with a major water problem: an excess of water. In an aggressive effort to increase output and ride the wave of China's appetite for raw materials, Rio Tinto had chosen, among others, the Marandoo mine in remote Pilbara to increase its overall capacity to 360 million tons, up from 290million tons (see Exhibit 1). Considering the ever-decreasing amount of readily accessible iron ore, Rio Tinto wanted to drill deeper and was aiming for the vast stores of ore underneath the water table, which were often hundreds of meters below the earth's surface. The ambitious undertaking came, however, with particular challenges. Being able to operate the mine under such circumstances meant being able to dispose of the surplus water, a process often referred to as dewatering. It was an open question whether Rio Tinto was developing a template for iron ore mining in the 21st century by its approach to the Marandoo expansion project. The Changing Mining Landscape The mining industry had been booming in Australia and elsewhere since early 2000. Commodity prices were rising higher and for a more extended period of time than during the previous boom period of the 1970s. Rapid growth in Asia and especially in China was driving demand for commodities, particularly in steel and energy generation. The landscape was very different from that of the lackluster 1980s and 1990s with Japan's “lost decade” and the Asian Financial Crisis. The rise in commodity prices this time was accompanied by a shift in resources toward mining, which triggered a large increase in the real exchange rate of the Australian dollar. The latter challenged the competitiveness of both the export- and import-competing industries, to such an extent that some economists started talking about “Dutch Disease” in the context of Australia. Rio Tinto expected continued strong fundamentals, especially in iron ore demand, despite some slowdown in Chinese economic growth (see Exhibit2). . . .

Is It Rational to Order Ships When Freight Markets Are in Depression?

“Very high spot rates induce excessive orders” this statement is tested. Time charter rates found not only to influence orders more than spot rates, but so does the price of shipbuilding. It is also shown that the surplus of supply over demand is a more accurate measure for shipowners in placing orders. This was first proposed by Koopmans (1939), but never tested statistically till this paper. Shipowners only remember well a depression that occurred in their life-time. They order ships during a depression to secure low prices, embody new technology (e.g. energy saving - ECO ships) or invest in promising ships (e.g. LNG, offshore units and large containerships). Some orders are placed at low freight rates. This phenomenon was first described by Zannetos (1966) (the “Zannetos’ paradox”). This paradox, however, contradicts maritime economists’ assumption of perfect foresight and a normal distribution for market disturbances. We take into account that a depression reduces capital cost (due to the lower new-building prices) and at the same time obliges shipowners to reduce operating costs. The previous boom (2003-2008) greatly helped subsequent orders in 2009-2014, as owners have built up sufficient liquidity. A depression is a period when, historically, shipowners have committed serious errors. It is rational to order ships when freight rates are high, but is it not suicidal to order them when spot, or time charter, rates, produce great losses? This is cleared out.

Boom and Bust and What Comes Next

The authors consider the current tech boom in the context of previous booms that have swept through San Francisco. They ask what can be learned from the busts that followed those periods of rapid growth and wonder what will happen when the current boom ends, and when and how the end might come.

An expanded role for the mining sector in Australian society?

Questions over the role of mining in the Australian economy and society have gained increasing public scrutiny in recent years. In this paper we consider whether the role of mining in Australian society has changed with the recent mining boom. The paper draws attention to four key areas. The first is the economics of mining, where a rise in commodity values has made mining more profitable. Mining now dominates Australian exports more than in previous booms. The second area is the scale of mining operations, which have grown substantially, reflecting unprecedented investment. The third area is the degree to which the effects of resource extraction extend to surrounding areas and distant urban centres through long distance commuting. Finally, we consider the centrality of the mining sector in public life: attention to mining in the media and encroachment on other land uses, and we look for evidence of changes in public acceptance of the sector. In conclusion we argue that the role of the mining sector in Australian society and economy has indeed changed. The changes in terms of trade and the scale of mining have made the resource sector so important in Australia that increased impact in public life is unavoidable.

Housing Finance Policy Under Dutch Disease Pressure: The Mortgage Market in Trinidad and Tobago

This work analyzes housing finance in Trinidad and Tobago during the last 20 years. The period covered is influenced by an economic bonanza led by the energy sector. Housing prices in this period skyrocketed, but the demand for mortgage loans was low. The results suggest that this is explained by affordability problems in the dynamics of the new post-shock equilibrium, as housing prices increased more rapidly than wages. Public housing finance also played a role, but in recent times it has been more prudently managed than during the previous boom of the 1970s.

Recent and Not-So-Recent Developments in Uranium Deposits and Implications for Exploration.: MICHEL CUNEY and KURT KYSER. Pp. 271. Paperback, with CD-ROM. Mineralogical Association of Canada, Short Course Series, volume 39, 2009. ISBN 978-0-921294-48-1. Price US$50.00 outside Canada, C$50.00 in Canada, US$40.00/ C$40.00 MAC members.

This volume and associated short course mark the 30th anniversary of the highly successful short course on uranium deposits held by Mineralogical Association of Canada (MAC), with similar goals of training exploration geologists after a period of low activity. The dramatic increase in the spot price for uranium in 2006 through 2008 spurred global exploration by major and junior exploration companies, but few experienced uranium geoscientists were available from the previous boom years. Although many of the basics remain little changed, the science of uranium deposits has evolved in many ways over 30 years. Microanalyses now yield more precise data that refine key geochemical parameters, and tectonics sets the geologic framework. Equally impressive are the new and large resource numbers for many deposit types, explained confidently by Cuney and Kyser, who have worked on diverse deposit types around the globe. They provide insightful reviews of deposits in the eastern hemisphere and on literature not available in English. Recent production is dominated by a few unconformity-related deposits with high grades, and in situ leaching of sandstone-hosted ores (each plant having small annual production). Data for reasonably assured and inferred resources show new trends, large resources are found in at least eight deposit types (geologic environments), volcanic and metasomatic deposit types are shown to contain important resources, and continued discoveries in …

Not Your Grandfather's Music: Tsugaru Shamisen Blurs the Lines Between "Folk," "Traditional," and "Pop"

This paper explores the ways in which Tsugaru shamisen musicians combine innovative techniques with a reverence for the past, producing music that constantly shifts between the categories of folk, traditional, and pop. I will demonstrate these qualities by examining the recordings, live performances, and images of some of Tsugaro shamisen's biggest stars the Yoshida Brothers and Agatsuma Hiromitsuin the context of Tsugaro shamisen's rich history, the music's previous booms, and its growing international exposure.

The United Kingdom's Small Banks' Crisis Of The Early 1990s: What Were The Leading Indicators Of Failure?

The announcement of BCCI's closure on 5 July 1991 rapidly accelerated the withdrawal of wholesale funds from small and medium-sized UK banks. Within three years, a quarter of the banks in this sector, had in some sense, failed. This study employs a logit model to analyse at two points prior to the crisis the distinct characteristics of the banks that failed compared with those that survived. Perhaps not surprisingly, a number of measures of bank weakness - low loan growth, poor profitability and illiquidity - are found to be good short-term predictors of failure, as are a high dependence on net interest income and low leverage. The best longer-term leading indicator of future failure, however, is rapid loan growth at the peak of the previous boom.

Land Use and Landscape Change in the Colorado Mountains I: Theory, Scale, and Pattern

Residential and commercial land development quickened during the 1990s throughout the U.S. Rocky Mountains, especially in Colorado, increasing the pace and extent of regional land use and landscape change. Unlike previous booms in mining, cattle, or energy, the current development wave is driven by growth in the secondary and tertiary economies--services, recreation, and information businesses-instead of commodity production. The result is sprawling land-use conversion, mostly from agricultural to residential, in even the most rural areas. This development pattern is examined in light of mountain and rural land-use theory, and its effects are evaluated at three scales in the Colorado mountains-regional, landscape, and site. The social and ecological impacts cited in previous rural development literature are evident, but also documented are landscape effects associated with the particular affluence of Colorado mountain development and the emergence of far-reaching rural sprawl and gentrification. Current development tends more than in the past to fragment land ownership, steepen land-use gradients at public/private boundaries, and increase human presence and disturbance in the urban/wildland interface. The paper concludes with suggestions for planning focused at the landscape scale.