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The Great Depression in Weber County, Utah, is an Oral History Project by Mack S. Taft for completion of his Master's Thesis at Utah State University during the summer of 1969. The interviews address the Great Depression through the eyes of individuals in several different occupations including: Bankers, Laborers, Railroad Workers, Attorneys, Farmers, Educators, Businessmen, Community and Church Leaders, Housewives, Children and Physicians. All of these individuals lived in Weber County from 1929 to 1941. The interviews were based on what they remembered about the depression, how they felt about those events and how it affected their life then and now. ; This is an oral history interview with George T. Frost. Commissioner Frost discusses the automobile business and working as a mail carrier during the Depression. He discusses various federal programs, such as the CCC and the WPA, and the need to economize. ; 15p.; 29cm.; 2 bound transcripts; 4 file folders. 1 sound disc: digital; 4 3/4 in. ; Oral History Program George T. Frost Interviewed by Mack S. Taft circa 1960s Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah George T. Frost Interviewed by Mack S. Taft circa 1960s Copyright © 2016 by Weber State University, Stewart Library iii Mission Statement The Oral History Program of the Stewart Library was created to preserve the institutional history of Weber State University and the Davis, Ogden and Weber County communities. By conducting carefully researched, recorded, and transcribed interviews, the Oral History Program creates archival oral histories intended for the widest possible use. Interviews are conducted with the goal of eliciting from each participant a full and accurate account of events. The interviews are transcribed, edited for accuracy and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewees (as available), who are encouraged to augment or correct their spoken words. The reviewed and corrected transcripts are indexed, printed, and bound with photographs and illustrative materials as available. The working files, original recording, and archival copies are housed in the University Archives. Project Description The Great Depression in Weber County, Utah, is an Oral History Project by Mack S. Taft for completion of his Master's Thesis at Utah State University during the summer of 1969. The forty-five interviews address the Great Depression through the eyes of individuals in several different occupations including: Bankers, Laborers, Railroad Workers, Attorneys, Farmers, Educators, Businessmen, Community and Church Leaders, Housewives, Children and Physicians. All of these individuals lived in Weber County from 1929 to 1941. The interviews were based on what they remembered about the depression, how they felt about those events and how it affected their life then and now. ____________________________________ Oral history is a method of collecting historical information through recorded interviews between a narrator with firsthand knowledge of historically significant events and a well-informed interviewer, with the goal of preserving substantive additions to the historical record. Because it is primary material, oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete narrative of events. It is a spoken account. It reflects personal opinion offered by the interviewee in response to questioning, and as such it is partisan, deeply involved, and irreplaceable. ____________________________________ Rights Management This work is the property of the Weber State University, Stewart Library Oral History Program. It may be used freely by individuals for research, teaching and personal use as long as this statement of availability is included in the text. It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Frost, George T., an oral history by Mack S. Taft, circa 1960s, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. 1 Abstract: This is an oral history interview with George T. Frost. Commissioner Frost discusses the automobile business and working as a mail carrier during the Depression. He discusses various federal programs, such as the CCC and the WPA, and the need to economize. The interviewer is Mack Taft. MT: Commissioner Frost, where did you live between the years 1929-39? GF: I moved down here to go to the Utah State College in the fall of 1928. Then I went back to Wyoming. I was born and raised in Wyoming, and I went back home for a short season. Then I came back down, and I've been in Ogden ever since. MT: When did you start your business activity here in Ogden? GF: Well, I became associated with the automobile business way back in 1934 with a friend of mine, L. H. Strong, whose name I'm sure rings a bell with a lot of people. He and I were both looking for work, as were millions of other people. We decided to try the automobile business – or rather he did. I was working for him at the time in a little spot down here at about 3230 Washington Boulevard, where the Lincoln-Mercury dealer is now, opened up a little shop selling Studebakers. That was my beginning in the automobile business. Even prior to that, he and I were overhauling cars in the place where the present Ogden Bowling Alley is, here on 26th and Washington. Anything, in other words, to make a dime. It was just that serious, scrounging around, trying to make a nickel. MT: Just go ahead and talk about what you remember about those years. GF: Well, let me give you a typical example of how things were at that time. I mentioned starting in the automobile business, that is, selling automobiles in 2 1934. I went back to South Bend, Indiana, I recall – this comes vividly to my mind – to pick up a couple of Studebakers. We were caravanning at that time. In other words, to save a few nickels, rather than ship them, we would go drive one behind another. This was in November 1934. I got somewhere into Iowa, and got into a snowstorm, and I fought snow all the way through Iowa and into Nebraska. I couldn't find any chains, and I couldn't even find any mud hooks, you know, to give me a little traction, you know. Anyhow, to make a long story short, I somewhere in Nebraska ran short of funds. In fact, I didn't have any to start with, to speak of, so I wired Strong here in Ogden to send me some money because I was going to be out of funds pretty quick. I told him to send it to North Platt, Nebraska, and I would pick it up. When I got to North Platt, I went to Western Union, and there were no funds there. They hadn't heard. So I left word with them that if the money did come, to forward it onto Cheyenne. So I took off, and I arrived in Cheyenne and pulled into a service station to fill up the tank, which I was in the process of doing when a Highway Patrolman pulled up beside me. Very nicely he informed me that I had to have a permit to caravan cars across Wyoming. As I recall, it was $1.50 a car at that time. Anyway, it was very interesting and coincidental that when I paid him and paid for the gas, it took every cent that I had in my pocket. So here I was completely broke. So I went down to the telegraph station, and here was the funds. But this is the point. Try to compare it with today, and it is almost a laughing matter. There was $17, if you can imagine, and that $17 had to get me into Ogden. But 3 $17 in those days was quite a lot of money. Going back even before that, I got married in 1932, which was right square in the middle of the worst of the Depression. I was working for the power company at the time. Just a week before my marriage date, I lost my job. That is, due to normal attrition, they were trying to find places for the older men. I, being one of the younger ones, had to leave. I was making $90 a month. Big deal, as compared to today, but my wife and I decided to go ahead anyway. It was that year that I got kind of mixed up in selling automobiles, as I mentioned, trying to make a dime to live. But, anyhow, this $17 got me back to Ogden, but $17 wouldn't go very far today. I remember several months later, I was called back to the power company to take my job back. The older gentleman that took my place couldn't do the work, so they gave me my job back. So I had a $90 a month job, and I was very, very grateful for it. A few years later, I got that up to as high as $150 a month. Actually, we were doing very well. We bought and built a home at that time. It cost us a little over $4,300 for that home, and we lived in it for about 20 years. So that home, it would have been about 10 or 12 years ago, it sold for over $16,000, almost four times more than what I bought it and built it for. But $150 was actually a pretty fair and reasonable income. We were very appreciative and very grateful for it. You could buy a loaf of bread for around five or seven cents, eight cents at most, a quart of milk for five, six, or seven cents, which is a far cry from what it is today. I well remember those days. MT: What do you remember as being some of the problems of the businessman during those years.? 4 GF: Well, we had pretty well gotten out of the worst of the Depression by the time I decided to go into business for myself. That was in the fall of 1940. Times had not at all really returned to what could really be called normal, but we were climbing out of it. People were more optimistic, had more opportunity, let's say. We had no idea at that time that we were going to be involved in a war. But I remember when I got involved in the automobile business, at that time, a young friend of mine and I decided that we would take a chance. We took on the Hudson dealership. This is laughable, as compared with today, but we borrowed a little bit of money to get started. We borrowed $250 to get started, if you can imagine such a thing, to get started in business. But we did it, and we leased a place down here on the corner of 27th and Washington, and started selling Hudson automobiles. I stayed with my partner for about a year. Prior to that, I had filled out an application with the postal service for a job. At that time, a notice came through, and after about five or six years, I had forgotten about it completely. They notified me that I was eligible for an appointment at the post office. Well, this looked awfully good, as you can well imagine, to have a steady job with steady pay, and a permanent job, for life. At that time, nothing could sound more sweet to your ears, to a man who had lived through the Depression and had scrounged and saved and schemed and done everything, almost, that he could think of to live on, to have a good, permanent job offered you. So I sold out my share of the business, and it is almost laughable when we look back on it. Our total net worth was just slightly over $3,000. But yet we 5 lived, and we did it, and we provided for ourselves with the sale of the cars. Today it would be absolutely impossible for anyone to even dream of such a thing. That money wouldn't even be worth a week's effort. Anyhow, I stayed with the post office for a couple of years, and this is not meant to be any reflection whatever on the postal service or the mail carrier, but I got so tired and weary physically that it rather disgusted me to think that all I had the brains enough to do was walk around with a pack on my back that even a jackass could do. I thought, "This certainly isn't the life for me, to walk around with a pack on my back." But anyhow, during the interim, my business partner had closed down the business and gone into the war. So I made application and got that franchise back, and though we couldn't operate during the war, I had this franchise in my pocket, favorably speaking. As I walked around delivering mail, I made up my mind that as soon as possible I was going to get back in the automobile business because I could see that as soon as the war was over, there was going to be a boom because cars were awfully hard to get, were not even being built to speak of, outside of what the government needed and wanted. So when the time came, I stuck my neck out again to get started in the automobile business again. But this time, instead of $250, it cost me $5,000 just to get started and rent a place with an option to purchase that place. Even then, that was very small scale and, by today's standards, extremely small scale. I had, you might say, moderate success. But during those immediate post-war years, we could hardly get enough cars to meet the demands. 6 MT: What do you think that you learned and that the public learned as a result of the Depression? GF: I'm glad you asked that because I've alluded to this many times in my life. I've said to my own family, "I wouldn't wish you to go through a Depression like that, necessarily, but I can assure you that that was one of the finest experiences that those of us who went through it will have ever had because if anything in this world has taught me, and has taught those people, I think by and large every one of us who went through that Depression, if we learned anything, it was the value of a dollar. Better than that, to have a job and to appreciate the fact that you had a job and had a little respect for your employer." So I would say that the greatest lesson that we learned out it was respect for one another, appreciation for the country in which we lived, appreciation for an opportunity, appreciation for just being able to make an honest dollar, and that we had to work. I can assure you that there was no place then for the so-called drone because, I'll tell you, only that man who was willing to work and put forth an honest effort was working in those days. I think that those who had those jobs appreciate that fact. I would somehow wish, as I have sometimes said, that every young person of my children's age, who are grown up now and are raising children of their own, I wish they could have had this experience without having to go through it, if you know what I mean, so that they would appreciate the value. In other words, a sense of value, I would say, would be one of the greatest lessons that we ever learned out of that. MT: What do you remember about the New Deal and the recovery measures, say the 7 WPA and the CCC and other programs set forth by the New Deal? GF: I remember quite well the WPA. It did a lot of good. For example, the North Ogden Fork road was built during the WPA days. It's rather interesting that over the years we have been prone to criticize the judgment of those that built it, thinking that they built it in the wrong place. I just mentioned this simply because we, as a commission, have decided that we are going to keep that road open the year around. We have been pressured by many of the old-timers to change its location. After going over it with many of our engineers, we find that the present location is the best. So I commend them and, you might say, apologize for some of the things I myself might have said or thought. But that was built during the WPA days, and they did a world of good. Of course, this was merely a stop-gap measure, which we all recognize. The CCC actually, in my opinion from what I can see on the surface of it, I wish our present Job Corps were organized somewhat more along the lines of the CCC. We see evidence today, all over this land, especially in the forest of work done by the CCC – and I think that is one of the finest, if you need stop-gap measures – that that's one of the finest programs that this government has ever engaged in, is the CCC. That was more oriented in actual physical work, in doing things that needed to be done, on all, many areas, particularly I'm thinking of public lands. A lot of those boys who came out of there had learned how to work and certainly they appreciated what they were getting because I can tell you it was something that they hadn't had before. I'm sure those boys – this is no criticism either, but I think that it comes a little easier today than it did then – and 8 again, I think that it comes back to this matter of appreciation. I think that it is something that all of us to do more is develop a sense of appreciation. You mentioned, also, the NRA. Well, you see, we were controlled by the NRA, and it was a good thing. If we hadn't had that, I hate to think what would have taken place in our economy. It would have been utter chaos. A lot of people got hurt. It was a good thing. I think that those acts that were enacted by the Congress during those Roosevelt days, a lot of criticism is heaped upon the president and Congress for that. For as I look back, I can see that every one of them are necessary. They did a lot of good. They kept things under control. I feel, and a lot of people today feel, that it had gotten out of control. I want to go on record today for commending the President for the action he has taken recently in this wage and price controls. My only criticism, if I were to give one, would be that he should have done it couple of years ago, or more, or the president before him should have done it. But by and large, few of these programs; I think they were wise and good decisions, and I think they were necessary. Here again, I think that they taught us to get along and appreciate our opportunities in this country. I would just like to re-emphasize that if they haven't gone through this Depression that we were talking about, that they appreciate what their elders may have told them and can tell them about that time, and really appreciate the wonderful opportunities that we have in this great country, and show that appreciation by the way they act, by the things they say, and the things they do. You wouldn't see the problems then that you have today. On that side of the 9 coin, that was a good thing because there was a sense of gratitude for just an honest dollar and a meal on your table, which is not prevalent today. It is unfortunate that it exists, but that's the way it is. I wouldn't want to go back to those days in spite of all our problems today, but I'm glad that I had that experience. MT: Did you use any special ingenuity, either you or your wife, to secure food or anything along this line? GF: Yes, indeed. I'm glad you mention that. Of course all of us, many of us, had a little garden in our back yard. We tore up our lawns. We planted vegetables, and in order to conserve our water, we dug little wells in the basement of our home, actually, and put little electric pumps on them to water our lawns. Innumerable ways, did we devise ways and means to provide for ourselves because we didn't have the money. The money wasn't available, so we just, we had to improvise, and that was good. It more or less rekindled that old, pioneer spirit and initiative that our fore-bearers had to use in coming into this country. That was very common. You saw innumerable gardens around this country, and that was just one area. Of course you can well imagine that we had to make a lot of our clothes, those you could, you know. Bread lines were extremely common everywhere. People were lining up everywhere just to get a loaf of bread and a bottle of milk. There was not much of it to be had, but I was able to, the one single thing that everyone was able to do, was to raise as much as they possibly could for their own food. Those of us who lived in the city found it a little more difficult. 10 MT: Did you have any experience of going to the rural area to pick up vegetables, or things along this line? GF: Well, actually, no, I didn't. I know a lot of people that did a great deal of it, you know. When the fall harvests were in, and the fruit was picked, many people would wait and kind of pick up the leavings, and it was very much appreciated. But like I said, those of us who were in the city, a lot of us, we raised what we could in our back yards, and it supplemented what we had on our table. But I personally did not get out in the rural areas and scrounge for these things, but a lot of people did, and they had to.

Diary 47 begins on November 4, 1897. According to his diary, Joseph arrived back in Baghdad from his journey to Europe with his son Alexander, his wife Eliza, and the outgoing British Consul Col. Mockler on October 14. He quickly settled back in to his normal life, traveling up and down the Tigris River from Baghdad to Basra and back, aboard the steamers of the Lynch company. Typically, Joseph was clerk aboard the H. Blosse Lynch, though on occasion his services were required aboard her newer sister ship, the Mejidieh. At home in Baghdad, Joseph corresponded with his son by mail?Alexander had begun studying several subjects in school, including German. Joseph also noted in his diary that he had paid a carpenter for four days worth of work while he was away at Basra, part of an ongoing series of improvements to his home in Baghdad. (4 November 1897, 2-3) Evidently, Eliza had returned to Iraq separately from Joseph, she had recently arrived at Basra in the SS Arabistan, one of several British steamers which made a regular run from Europe, through the Red Sea and Persian Gulf before traveling on to India. On Monday, November 8, Joseph met Eliza at Basra. Upon meeting her again, he wrote in his diary: ?I could not keep myself from the tears on seeing her without my son Alexander.? (8 Nov. 1897, 9) The news that she brought was just as bad. She complained that in Paris, their family friend Ibrahim Gejou had treated them quite poorly. He was unprepared for their arrival and charged them extra for her to stay in the same room with Alexander. To make matters worse, Eliza believed that Alexander should not remain in Paris because he spent too much money too quickly and made a habit of selling his postage stamps instead of using them to write home. The whole conversation left Joseph ?so very sorry & broken hearted that [he] lost all the pleasure of talking with her about anything else.? That night, he could not sleep well on account of the excessive mosquitoes and his wife?s story of his son?s life in Paris. (8 Nov. 1897, 10) Upon their return to Baghdad together, the rest of the family was glad to see Joseph and Eliza once again. Throughout November, Joseph often noted that the weather was unusually cold and calm, recording morning temperatures in the low thirties Fahrenheit, and overnight temperatures that sometimes dipped as low as the mid-twenties. On Tuesday the 16th, Joseph took the time to call on the new British Consul General, Colonel Lock, who had replaced the outgoing Col. Mockler. Lock, it seems, was rather interested in performing archaological expeditions in the surrounding desert. An avid amateur archaeologist himself, Joseph recommended that Lock visit the site of Sippar at Tell Abu Habbah, southwest of Baghdad. Joseph then went to meet the new French Vice Consul M. Ron?, and engineer M. Jacquer?s. (16 Nov. 1897, 17-18) After visiting with some family on November 17th, tending to some home business, and receiving another letter from his son, Joseph embarked for Basra again on the 19th. Throughout the journey, Joseph continually complained of the cold weather and its ill effects on his health.? At Basra, they took on an important cargo: the body of Sheikh Mezel of the Mahomerah tribe. Mezel had been murdered by his brother Khazal, and the body was being transported to the Shi?a holy city of Karbala for burial. On this journey, Joseph listed among the notable passengers: the new Inspector for the Quarantine of Baghdad dispatched by Constantinople, Dr. Z. Yeronimakus; Dr. Malakis of the Basra Quarantine and his clerk Solon Calothi, coming for an unspecified political affair, as well as Ezra Daniel the Jew Apothecary. (23-4 Nov. 1897, 27-9) On November 28, Joseph learned of the death of Yousif Sayegh, a relative of his wife Eliza?s late husband Fathallah. Joseph and his brother-in-law Antone Marine attended a wake at the Sayegh family home in Baghdad, where Yousif had lived as the last resident after his remaining brothers in the clergy moved north to Mosul. Later that afternoon, Joseph, Antone Marine, and their friend Yousif Korkis Tessy accompanied the body from the Sayegh home to the Armenian Church near the ancient citadel in the northwest corner of Baghdad, where funeral services were held. The Baghdadi Christian community turned out in droves to pay their respects, including the Russian consul Mr. Mashkow. Following the funeral, the body was taken by mourning carriage to the Christian cemetery complex on the eastern outskirts of the city, where it was interred. (28 Nov. 1897, 34-5) Aside from unusually rainy and gloomy weather, the late autumn and early winter of 1897 was a relatively uneventful time. The work on the Svoboda family home continued, he noted in his diary that he painted the pillars and railings in his home yellow and green. (30 Nov. 1897, 37) In December, Joseph continued to correspond with Alexander, who complained of the bitterly cold winter in Paris, the like of which he had rarely experienced??temperature always at zero, or freezing point.? (16 Dec. 1897, 53) Once, on a journey from Baghdad to Basra, Joseph noted that some of his passengers were the former administrators of the Basra Quarantine, ?Dr. Lubiez and Dr. Malakis. They, along with their entire staff, had been dismissed from their positions for reasons that Joseph was not aware of, and were returning to Istanbul via the Suez Canal in the steamer Alphonse Parran. (17 Dec. 1897, 55) On the same trip to Basra, Joseph gave Rezooki Sayegh three Arabic language manuscripts to send to Alexander via Bombay so that they could be sold in Paris. Joseph also sent four Rumelian Railway lottery bonds (purchased at a price of 28 Turkish Lira) for Alexander to sell in exchange for some of the Paris Exhibition Lottery bonds for 1900 for 1 Napoleon apiece. (21 December 1897, 59-60) On Christmas Day, Joseph noted that they passed the Ottoman steamers Mossul and Ressafah near Bughela carrying Ottoman soldiers to Kuwait to settle a disturbance, as he put it, ?between the followers of the Sheikh of Kweit Moobarak el Subah and his brother?s sons, as his brother Mahomed was Killed by the former 2 years ago, the Arabs have split in two parts.? Later, the crew celebrated Christmas aboard the Blosse Lynch with a caked baked by Captain Cowley?s butler Francis. (25 December 1897, 64-5) Upon arriving back at Baghdad, Joseph wrote that the Damascus Post, the key mail line going over land through the Ottoman Empire, was delayed by more than four days, meaning he and Eliza had no letters from Alexander for Christmas. (26 December 1897, 66) It arrived the following day, the driver having been found dead in the desert between Hit and Saglawyeh east of the Euphrates. (27 December 1897, 68) Several days later, Joseph mailed Alexander a cheque for 200 francs from his uncle Yousif Marine as a Christmas gift. (30 December 1897, 71) The first of the New Year brought an unexpected surprise. On a trip down to Basra, with morning temperatures hovering around freezing, Joseph notes a particularly uncommon weather phenomenon: ?It begun to Snow after midnight, a phenomena for this part of the world and a great rarity, I never saw it like this but once some 25 years ago; the whole desert, banks of the river and brush wood are covered with it so white and picturesque.? (1 January 1898, 74) Though recording wonder at the rarity and beauty of the event, Joseph complains of the cold for several days.?It seems the threat of Ottoman military force successfully settled the troubles in Gulf, at least temporarily, as the Blosse Lynch passed the same contingent of Turkish soldiers now encamped at Lebany on the banks of the Tigris. Evidently, the Sheikh of Qatar (Kater in Joseph?s rendering) Jassim el Thani had submitted to Ottoman authority. (4 January 1898, 79) The month of January 1898 saw three anniversaries that each occasioned great celebration in Baghdad. On January 6, the Father Superior of the Latin Church, Marie Joseph, was feted for his 40th anniversary at the Church in Baghdad. The French Vice Consul, Mons. Ronet, presented the priest with the Palmes d?Officier d?Acad?mie, one of the highest awards for the expansion of French culture abroad. January 9th, 1898 corresponded to the 16th of Sha?aban in the Islamic hijri calendar, and was celebrated as the Coronation Day of Sultan Abdulhamid II. According to Joseph, all of the foreign consuls in Baghdad paid their respects to the Governor of Baghdad Vali Atta-allah Pasha and Mushir Rejeb Pasha, Commander in Chief of the Ottoman 6th Army. (9 Jan 1898, 85-6) On January 27, late in the evening on account of the Ramadan fast, the German consulate hosted a reception in honor of Kaiser Wilhelm?s birthday. Joseph attended, along with most of the European diplomatic community and the Ottoman provincial administrators. There was a dance, and guests were entertained by the Ottoman military band. (27 January 1898, 111-3)? On January 10, Joseph received an urgent telegram from his son asking permission to travel to Cairo to work for the international commission overseeing the management of Egyptian public debt. He wrote in his diary ?I was astonished to see such a message, how could I possibly let him accept such a situation without first knowing what condition and how and who has asked him, or if he has been applying for it?? He attempted to send a telegram ordering Alexander to wait, but it was delayed by a cut telegraph line, an all-too common occurrence. In the mean time, his brother-in-law Anton Marine advised him to allow Alexander to pursue the opportunity. Joseph resolved to wait until his son sent more details by mail. (10 January 1898, 87-8) Upon receiving Joseph?s telegram, Alexander replied by wire that he would wait until the end of February. Joseph wrote: ?All here advise me to let him go after I receive the full particulars of this situation in Cairo if advantageous; I was so restless all the night thinking about Alexander?s project of wishing to go to Cairo.? (18 January 1898, 99)?A week later, Joseph received two letters from Alexander from the end of December, more thoroughly explaining his motivations. Through Sherif Beg, the son of a Moossa Kadem Pasha, he met the unnamed son of a Serkis Pasha, who in turn promised to introduce Alexander to Nubar Pasha, the former Egyptian Prime Minister that had retired to Paris. (24 January 1898, 107-8) Throughout the later months of winter, Joseph continued to correspond frequently with Alexander. On Sunday February 6, he received an inexplicable telegram from his which simply read: ?Grammaire, 100 francs repondez.? In his diary, Joseph puzzled over the meaning of the message. He went to the German consulate to gather and copy the necessary documents for Alexander to renew his Austrian passport through their family friend Mr. B?hm in Vienna. After a few days, Joseph finally surmised that, by ?grammaire,? Alexander must have meant the Arabic manuscripts he had sent to him in December. He replied telling Alexander to suspend the sale, as 100 francs was far too low a price. He then sent Alexander a longer letter via the Damascus Post to telling providing the details of a trip to Vienna and telling him that he ?must give up the idea of the job in Egypt for the present." (6-10 February 1898, 124-30)?On February 19, Joseph received two letters from Alexander from a month earlier, explaining that he had been quite unwell, but that he had given up the thought of going to Cairo and would instead go to Vienna come spring. (19 February 1898, 142-3) Glad to hear that his son had come to his senses, Joseph wrote to Alexander to tell him that if he was short of money he could draw 500 francs from Rezooki Korkis for his travels. (23 February 1898, 146)? For the most part, the winter of 1897-1898 was cold and dry. In late February Joseph noted with relief that rain had finally come. The drought had pushed grain prices to historic highs. According to Joseph: ?wheat had risen to 500 piasters per Wazna of 78 Constantinople Oke; a thing which has never yet occurred before.? (25 Feb. 1898, 149) The bad weather had also killed off livestock and destroyed much of the vegetable crop. Bad pasturage from the cold meant that young lambs were killed early for their skins rather than their meat or wool. (1 March 1898, 155) Joseph recorded in his diary upon returning to Baghdad from Basra in early March: ?There is a great scarcity and dearnes of provision in town; which is worth noting, it is caused by the scarcity of rain & the severe cold of this winter which killed all of the vegetation & pasturage for sheep & cattle & the price rose steadily, although there are a great quantity of Grain stowed away by the dealers in hopes of getting the price up & therefore making a good profit, the Government do not seem to take any steps to avoid this, & force the people & the sellers to dispose of the provision at a reasonable price, every kind of food rose accordingly.? (4 March 1898, 158-9) Joseph wrote that the spike in food prices precipitated unrest and banditry amongst the tribal Arabs outside the city: ?Lots of theft & plunder are taking place in the town & outside, the Arabs are plundering Keleks & caravans; & theives robbing houses & shops on account of the scarcity.? (5 February 1898, 160) On March 5th, at the invitation of Eliahoo Denoos, the Seraf of the Residency, Joseph, his wife Eliza, Antone Marine and his family, Yousif Asfar and Philip Chiha went together to the wedding of his brother Noonoo Denoos. Joseph was not pleased by the nights? festivities. He complained to his diary: ?there were hundreds of people Jews and Mahomedans, with the Jews band, and the Native music?the ladies were separated from us in other rooms, I did not like this entertainment at all, there is no taste in it, neither head or tale. We left at 11 1/2 and came to our houses. But I lost my sleep and could not do so all the rest of the night.? (6 March 1898, 160-2) The following morning, Joseph sent a telegram to Alexander authorizing him to sell the Arabic manuscript for 100 francs and the Rumelian Railway Lotteries for 105 Francs each. He lamented that he had paid 140 francs for each of them initially. (7-10 March 1898, 162-7) He later sent a more detailed letter to Alexander laying out his financial situation. Joseph allowed Alexander to keep the proceeds from the manuscript sale (100 francs) and the Rumelian lottery sale (225 Francs, less the cost of 10 shares of the 1900 Paris Exhibition lottery for various family members), plus 500 francs apiece from N. Sayegh and Rezooki Korkis, and a 300 franc bank note from Joseph, giving Alexander more than 1600 francs. Joseph thought this was an ample sum to get Alexander through to Vienna. That evening, he received a letter from Alexander informing him that he had sold the Rumelian lotteries for 104 Francs each, minus 14 francs for stamp duties and commissions. Joseph noted that the whole transaction had come at a loss to him of 158 francs. Alexander also told his father that he was planning to leave for Vienna around April 10. (10 March 1898, 166-7) As he often did, Joseph complained about government corruption on the occasion of the dismissal of the Vali of Basra, Arif Pasha, in mid-March. Joseph noted that he had been appointed in November of 1896, a scant 16 months earlier. He wrote that the Vali left ?with a nice fortune made of nearly 30,000 TLiras, it is the largest sum of that any former Governor had been able to squeeze out from the sheikhs and merchants and other bribery.? The Lynches transported Arif Pasha back to Baghdad aboard the Blosse Lynch, breaching normal diplomatic protocol by not flying the Turkish flag, as neither they nor the dismissed Vali had one. The following day the ship?s crew rectified this oversight by running up a makeshift Turkish flag in the rigging. (14-5 March 1898, 172-6) Joseph also made a habit of recording various business intrigues and company gossip. In late March, he noted that Mr. Hatfield, the Blosse Lynch?s second mate was reprimanded and dismissed by Mr. Bottomley, Stephen Lynch?s agent in Baghdad. The unfortunate Hatfiled was immediately pulled from service and given a one-way ticket to Karachi, the nearest British port. His dismissal came as the result of various derelictions of duty: once failing to pick up the mails for India, once leaving the ship without permission on account of an alleged illness, and bringing numerous prostitutes onto the steamer into his cabin??in excess,? as Joseph put it. Nevertheless, Joseph did not seem to believe that Hatfield?s behavior was too out of line, writing: ?Otherwise he is sober and of good and mild temper he certainly has followed what other officers are doing in both steamers. (24 March 1898, 185-6) As the Mesopotamian winter transitioned into spring, and the cold gave way to heat, humidity, and insects, life continued apace for Joseph. April 15 marked a year since he had departed for Europe with Alexander and Eliza. The same day, he received a letter from Alexander asking for permission to return home from Vienna via the overland route at Aleppo, as he disliked traveling by sea. At the same time, he also asked permission to take an alternate route to Vienna, via Lyon, Milan, and Venice. ?(15 April 1898, 216-7) Meanwhile, the renovations to Joseph?s continued. He noted in his diary ?I had masons today in repairing the wall on the narrow street, and also in my small house behind. (19 April 1898, 223) On 27 April, Joseph complained to his diary of a new flare up of his persistent stomach ulcer: ?I took a dose of Castor Oil this morning early at 4 1/2 as I have felt bilious and bowels out of order, I had not taken it for a year? (27 April 1898, 233) In late April, the Chaldean Patriarch from Mosul, Aleed Ishoh came to Baghdad to oversee the completion of a new Chaldean church. Construction on this church had begun some five years earlier, but it had been halted due to lack of sufficient funds. Joseph recorded of him: ?He is an old man of 75 and very clever, speaking several European languages he has the decoration of the Mejidieh Class? I found him a nice person very talketive and amusing.? (29 April-1 May 1898, 237-39) The Patriarch?s visit was of some local social importance, he was called on by the Atta-allah Pasha the Vali and Rejeb Pasha the Mushir of the Ottoman 6th Army. In May, some two months after Arif Pasha?s dismissal as Vali of Basra, Joseph recorded that Anis Pasha had been permanently appointed in his place. This appointment proved controversial among Anis Pasha was the former Governor of Diyarbak?r and helped order the massacres of Armenians during the Hamidian pogroms of 1894-96. Joseph writes: ?This is the same Anis Pasha who was Governor of Diarbekir 2 years ago, during the Armenian Massacre there, encouraged by him and he remained inactive, and the French Consul there wired to the French Ambassador Mons. Cambon, the latter went immediately to the Sultan and complained very strongly and demanded the immediate dismissal of Anis Pasha to stop the massacre, which he did, and there was no further bloodshed; Now he has been appointed to Basreh, but the English and French protested strongly to the Sultan regarding his being appointed Wali at Basreh.? (2 May 1898, 240-2) Despite the protestations of European diplomats, Anis Pasha arrived in Basra aboard the Ottoman steamer Ressafah. He was met with great fanfare from the local officials and nobility amidst an honor guard of Ottoman soldiers. (9 May 1898, 252-3) In mid-May, Joseph received a telegram from Alexander told his father to rest assured that he would depart Paris for Vienna soon, but that he needed to be sent an additional 500 francs. Joseph confided to his diary: ?I suppose he wants the money for the Bycicle which he must have bought; I had written to him not to buy one now as I had arranged with Johny, my nephew to get two out from London one for himself, I did not know what to do, and not having money just now to advance him so I had to satisfy his wishes.? Joseph arranged for Rezooki Korkis to advance Alexander 20?. (13 May 1898, 259) Meanwhile, the renovations to Joseph?s home continued. On May 18th, he recorded in his diary: ?I have carpenters at home for the last 30 days working in making me a new railings on top of the house made of Jawi wood.? Later that day, Joseph received a telegram from Alexander dated the previous night informing him that he had arrived safely in Vienna. Joseph speculated that Alexander must have left Paris on the 10th and travelled by Milan, Turin, and Venice to reach Vienna on the 17th. (18 May 1898, 264-5) Late May brought severe weather. On the night of May 24th, Joseph observed lightning and thunder on the southern horizon while the Blosse Lynch took on coal and offloaded cargo and passengers at Amara. Joseph watched with apprehension as the storm seemed to move up to the north and west, with ?thick black clouds like a range of high mountains.? A sudden shift in the wind brought the ominous clouds above them at Amara. Joseph later wrote: ?it gave us no time to furl the awnings when it begun to blow a terrific squall such as I never witnessed; With thick dust and rain and the strong lightning, the Wind is blowing from the opposite side and played havoc with the upper deck riggings, all the awnings were torn away, stretchers broke and stancheons bent and were rattling on the deck like so many sounds of cannons, the passengers Kit flew on shore and most of it were picked away by Arabs; the passengers came down yelling and crying; the thick dust blinded us, the incessant lightning and thunder was a sight like a hurricane at sea.? The squall lasted for a half an hour, intruding into the cabins and causing small leaks below deck. However, the damage to the Blosse Lynch was minimal. The crew finished taking on six tons of coal and a shipment of ghi, and she got underway again after just a few hours. (24 May 1898, 275-6) In June, Joseph noted a major dispute between the Arab tribes. He records: ?About a month ago, a great quarrel had taken place between the tribes of Hassan ibn Jendeel of the Beni Laam tribe and Magasis located from Coot and downward on the West bank and both lost about 20 or 30 Men Killed; and now all the Governors of the surrounding districts have gathered at S. Saad to arrange the Matter and collected the Sheikhs to oblige them to give a Guarantee for their future Good behaviour.? The mutasarr?fs of Amara and Nasryeh(?), and the Kaymakam of Kut Jaffer Beg, as well as Ottoman officials came with a company of soldiers to mediate the dispute. (17 June 1898, 307-8) Later that month, Joseph received a few letters from Alexander about his stay in Vienna. He recorded in his diary with pride that Alexander ?is very well, taking his German lesson from Dr. Bayer, and goes to a large merchants office, a very extensive export firm he is very glad of this place and the Director is very satisfied of him, he was recommended to this large house by Mr. B?hm, who also writes to me a very nice letter and telling me how he is looking after Alexander.? (24 June 1898, 320) At the same time, he received a telegram from Alexander stating ?Require 500 hastily advise Korkis.? Knowing that the expense of the journey from Paris and his emergency visit to the doctor were quite high, Joseph confided to his diary ?I could not possibly avoid sending him as he may be in great need.? Joseph went to Yousif Korkis and had him wire his brother Rezooki for 20? Sterling for Alexander. (24 June 1898, 321) However, Alexander?s stay in Vienna was destined to be a short one. On July 8th, Joseph wrote to Alexander and provided details about his impending journey home over land, including a list of stations from Alexandretta (?skenderun) to Deir ez-Zor in the Syrian desert. (2 July 1898, 330)?But, In order for Alexander to return home, Joseph had to engage in some subterfuge. In early July, Alexander his Ottoman passport back to Joseph for renewal. Mr. B?hm, the Svoboda family friend in Vienna, could not obtain an Austrian passport for Alexander. Having just turned 20, Alexander was still liable for mandatory conscription into the Austrian army, and if the authorities knew of his presence there, he would be drafted in September. Thus, Alexander would have to travel back to Istanbul on an Ottoman passport. (8 July 1898, 338) On the same day, Joseph recorded that the Mushir of the Ottoman 6th Army, Recep Pasha, had been transferred to Tripoli in North Africa by order from Istanbul. Joseph wrote: ?It is to the regret of everybody here Christians, Mahomedans and Jews because he is one of the best man in the Turkish service, a very honest streight forward man, a just and wise administrator, he belongs to the New School and a liberal and open hearted.? Evidently, the Vali was jealous of Recep Pasha?s popularity: ?The present Waly here Atta-Allah Pasha who is a very old man, very fanatic and lazy, and does no good to the welfare of the people and the country, hated by everybody, but has a great influence and being a relative of the Sheikh ul-Islam and hates the Mushir in his internal feelings, being jealous of him because every body likes the latter, and has been undermining him and, the Sultan hates every person in his services who has such influence and liberality with the nation; and frightened by false rumor bing represented to him, that if the Mushire is allowed to be left in Baghdad where his popularity is gaining ground, he might eventually gain his independence by having all the Army Corps siding with him as well as the population, and it might end by the dismemberment of Irak Arabia from the Turkish dominion.?(8 July 1898, 338-40) The Mushir was popular with the local citizens of Baghdad. A group of concerned residents telegrammed to Istanbul begging the Porte to retain him, but according to Joseph their appeals had the opposite of the intended effect. Instead, they inflamed the Atta-allah Pasha and Sultan Abdulhamid II?s fears that Recep Pasha?s popularity might one day lead to rebellion. Instead, the Mushir of Yemen was called in to take Recep Pasha?s place. The next several days were ?fearfully warm,? as Joseph put it, with afternoon temperatures hovering in the mid-110s. The pace of business slowed considerably?the Blosse Lynch remained docked at the Customs House for some time offloading cargo. Joseph took advantage of time to catch up on correspondence and visitation. On July 9th, he received a new telegram from Alexander stating: ?Advantageous Affaire in hand, require thousand florins? This sum was equal to about 90? Sterling. Joseph had Rezooki Korkis wire Alexander the money, believing it to be for the purchase of items in Europe that could be resold at a better price in Baghdad. (9 July 1898, 343) On the 11th, Joseph called on the Agha Muhammad at his home on the outskirts of Baghdad, and the following afternoon he went to visit Mushir Recep Pasha to bid him goodbye. On the 13th, Joseph sent Alexander a lengthy letter?six sheets?arranging accommodations for him in Istanbul at the Mostapha Pasha Han. He sent along a letter of recommendation from his friend Georgis Antone to Antone?s friend Nazaret Kasparyan, who ran the han, to provide Alexander 30 Turkish Liras on his arrival. The package also included Alexander?s Ottoman passport. (13 July 1898, 349) Throughout the summer, tensions between the local Ottoman authorities and the Arab tribes of the lower Tigris continued. Joseph wrote in mid-July that ?there has been a disturbance lately caused by the Motserrif of Amara Mostapha Pasha who came here to fill his pocket from Sheikh Seyhood (the runaway brigand who had attacked the Khalifah, and now made Sheikh and reinstated by the Turks and farmed lands here and the Motserrif wanted to exact more money from him and his sons Faleh, Kathem, etc, the Motserrif having taken one of the sons and put him in prison, and the father Seyhood came and attacked the village and fired shots from the opposite side on the telegraph office where the Motserrif was sitting.? Both of the active Lynch steamers?the Khalifa and the Blosse Lynch?were given contingents of zaptyehs to guard against attack from Arab gunners. (16 July 1898, 354-5) On July 22nd, Joseph received two letters from Alexander complaining about the strangeness of Vienna. Alexander wrote that Mr. B?hm had departed Vienna to stay in the countryside for the summer, leaving him alone. He also informed his father that he had used one of the payments of 500 francs to buy 100 pairs of European shoes, presumably to bring back to Baghdad to sell. (22 July 1898, 368) On July 25, Joseph received an urgent telegram from Alexander in Paris dated July 22, informing him that he was in Paris for an important purpose, and that he would sent a letter soon explaining why. Joseph was astonished at his sudden departure and feared that Alexander had fled because someone had tipped off the authorities to his presence, making him liable for conscription. Joseph wrote in his diary: ?I suspect the sons of Isak Lurion either Faust or Edward, they saw that he was in the office of Olloi Schweizer the General Export merchant and did this out of spite." Joseph immediately telegramed Ibrahim Gejou in Paris asking for an explantion. (25 July 1898, 370-1) He tried to contact Mr. B?hm at his summer home to ask about the situation. (27 July 1898, 374) On the morning of July 28th, Joseph set out for Basra aboard the Blosse Lynch, not knowing Alexander?s fate. He spoke to Mr. Julietti at the Baghdad telegraph office and made arrangements for any telegrams addressed to him at Baghdad to be forwarded to him at Amara or Basra. Yet, when they anchored at Amara on the 30th, there was still no word from Alexander. Being left in such a state of ignorance took a heavy toll on Joseph?s mental well-being: ??I could no longer write and was getting mad and feel so weak that I do not know what to do and where to go, my heart fails me and I am so sorry and out of temper on account of Alexander.? (31 July 1898, 380) Upon landing at Basra, Joseph received a package of three urgent telegrams, one from Ibrahim Gejou and two from his wife Eliza. In the first, Gejou informed Joseph that Alexander was indeed in Paris, seemingly to be married. In the second, Eliza exhorted Alexander to telegraph the Austrian consul in Baghdad to inform the Ambassador in Paris to put a stop to the marriage, this was followed by one from two hours later, in which Eliza stated that she had corresponded with Monseigneur Altmayer, the Archbishop of Baghdad, who advised that involving the Austrian ambassador could be a risky proposition. Alexander had, after all, been preparing to depart Vienna so that he could avoid conscription into the Austrian army. Joseph sarcastically recorded in his diary: ?This is a fine thing Alexander is doing if what Ibrahim says is true; I am at a loss to find out the reality of this news; but if it is true Alexander must have been doing a great fault and foolishness; unless Ibrahim has been working at it all the time before he went to Vienna.? He discussed the matter with his friends and relations in Basra and resolved to telegram back to Paris to both Ibrahim Gejou and Alexander to discover what was behind Alexander?s seemingly erratic behavior. Joseph was unable to sleep that night. On the morning of August 1, after he had sent off his telegrams to Alexander and Ibrahim, Joseph boarded the Blosse Lynch to return to Baghdad. In one of the final entries in Diary 47, he wrote: ?This news has stunned me and made me quite sick pulled down as it is a thing that I never expected it to come from my only son that I hold so dear and precious on earth, my affection to him has no limit and I have been expecting to see him soon and am sacrificing everything for him even my health and existence.? That evening the Blosse Lynch set sail, with Joseph still awaiting a response from his son and an answer to his worries. (31 July-1 August 1898, 380-6) ; NELC, Simpson Center for the Humanities

Marc Joffe


San Francisco is proving to be ground zero in the nationwide commercial real estate collapse. While the values of offices and malls are tumbling in many US cities, the losses in San Francisco are more dramatic and, unlike elsewhere, have extended to hotels. City and state government mismanagement have played a major role in destroying billions of dollars in assessable real estate values, but the role of these policies is easily overlooked.
San Francisco's plight was thrown into sharp relief on June 5, when the owner of two downtown hotels containing a combined 2,925 rooms announced that it would cease making payments on a $725 million mortgage backed by the properties. Commercial bond investors will now have to find a company willing to purchase the hotels at a small fraction of their estimated 2020 valuation of $1.561 billion.
In explaining the company's decision to walk away from the hotels, Thomas J. Baltimore, Jr., Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Park Hotels and Resorts stated:
After much thought and consideration, we believe it is in the best interest for Park's stockholders to materially reduce our current exposure to the San Francisco market. Now more than ever, we believe San Francisco's path to recovery remains clouded and elongated by major challenges – both old and new: record high office vacancy; concerns over street conditions; lower return to office than peer cities; and a weaker than expected citywide convention calendar through 2027 that will negatively impact business and leisure demand and will likely significantly reduce compression in the city for the foreseeable future.

Another nearby hotel is also experiencing a dramatic valuation decline. The 1,195-room Westin St. Francis Hotel has asked the local tax assessor to slash the combined assessment of its two parcels from $1.037 billion to $101 million.
The hotels are within walking distance of the Westfield San Francisco Centre mall that is losing its anchor retailer, Nordstrom, this summer. Before Nordstrom announced the closure, S&P had already estimated that the mall's value had declined by over 70% since it was appraised in 2016.
An even larger value decline was suffered by a 22‐​story office tower at 350 California Street. After being valued at around $300 million in 2019, the property recently changed hands for between $60 million and $67.5 million according to media reports.
When considering why San Francisco has suffered so much commercial real estate value destruction in the 2020s, it is tempting to conclude that the city's tech‐​heavy workforce was better equipped to work from home. This factor played a role but should not be overestimated. Indeed, one common software development methodology, known as agile, often involved daily in‐​person team meetings. So, it is not strictly true that software engineering is a solitary job.
Rather than blame the pandemic or the local business mix, San Francisco and California political leaders should look inward at their policy errors that exacerbated the city's distress. Among these unforced errors were their harsh lockdown policies and the failure to provide adequate security in the downtown core.
The Lockdown
San Francisco and neighboring counties were the first to impose sweeping stay‐​at‐​home orders at the beginning of the COVID pandemic in the US. More importantly, San Francisco and its neighbors were slower than most other population centers to relax COVID-19 restrictions.
Over a three‐​year period, San Francisco's public health officer issued a blizzard of rules that were often lengthy and challenging to implement. As late as January 27, 2021 (over ten months into the pandemic), he issued an order that required "all residents in the County to reduce the risk of COVID-19 transmission by staying in their residences to the extent possible and minimizing trips and activities outside the home." At the time, California had more cases per capita than the less restrictive states of Texas and Florida, begging the question of how effective lockdown measures were.
By continuing shelter‐​at‐​home restrictions for so long, San Francisco normalized remote work, thereby encouraging employers and employees to adopt to a new normal. Many employees moved beyond easy commuting distance from the city on the assumption that they could retain hybrid or fully remote work arrangements permanently.
Although San Francisco's political leaders trumpet the city's low per capita death rate from COVID-19, some of that is attributable to individuals temporarily or permanently leaving the area, thereby deflating the true denominator of any death rate calculation. Economist Stephen Hanke has concluded that lockdowns had "a negligible effect" in COVID deaths.
Lack of Security
As the accompanying map shows, San Francisco has a very high concentration of high value properties in a small geographic area. Many of these $100 million plus properties (based on assessed value) are within walking distance of the Tenderloin neighborhood which has struggled over several decades. But in recent years, the social problems of the Tenderloin have increasingly spilled over into the adjacent, high‐​value areas, deterring tourists, shoppers, and office workers from visiting.











Measuring crime trends is challenging. According to Police Department statistics, reported crimes in the first five months of 2023 are below pre‐​pandemic levels. But some proportion of crime goes unreported and it is possible that this proportion has increased given the low likelihood that San Francisco police will identify a suspect. In 2022, only 2.9% of larceny thefts were cleared within one year.
Also, residents clearly perceive an increase in crime. The most recent City Controller survey found that San Franciscans rated the city's safety a C+, the lowest grade since 1996. Safety ratings were especially low in the Tenderloin and two adjoining neighborhoods with high‐​value commercial real estate: South of Market and Financial District/​South Beach.
Critics have highlighted various public safety policy concerns including the defund the police movement, lax prosecution, reclassification of shoplifting goods worth less than $950 as a misdemeanor, disincarceration, and lack of enforcement against open air drug markets. Since these issues have been covered elsewhere and libertarians have varying opinions about them, I'll address a couple of other aspects that have received less attention.
First, the city has encouraged many individuals who may be more prone to criminal activity to concentrate in and around the Tenderloin. It has done this by establishing a cluster of thousands of supportive housing units, mostly in converted hotels in the area. Although residents of supportive housing are no longer defined as "homeless", many if not most are still dealing with issues such as drug addiction that contributed to their loss of shelter.
During the pandemic, the city converted hundreds of additional hotel rooms in the area to temporary residences for unhoused homeless individuals in hopes of preventing them from getting and spreading COVID-19. But the unintended effect of this program, known as Project Roomkey, seems to have been to increase drug abuse and disorder at the periphery of the Tenderloin.
One Project Roomkey property, Hotel Whitcomb, housed about four hundred homeless individuals, many of whom were continuing to use drugs. Shortly thereafter, a new open air drug market became established in an alley just south of Market Street. Both the hotel and the drug market were near a new Whole Foods store which was forced to close due to high rates of theft and violent criminal activity.
Aside from concentrating potential offenders in the area, the city and activists appear to have neutered two quasi‐​private mechanisms that allow business districts to enhance security levels beyond that which the city government would normally provide.
Since 1847, San Francisco has had a category of law enforcement officers known as a Patrol Special Police. These trained officers can be directly hired by groups of merchants and/​or homeowners to patrol and provide other security services within a designated area. In 1994, there were 72 patrol special police serving 65 areas. But their ranks decreased in recent decades and, as of 2022, only one officer remained.
Although clients expressed a high level of satisfaction with their services, city policies have decimated the program. San Francisco's charter requires the city's Police Commission to approve new patrol special officers, but in recent years it has rarely done so. At the same time, the San Francisco Police Department offered a competing program under which city‐​employed police officers could provide security services to local business when they would otherwise be off duty.
Since clients must cover officer pay at overtime rates, this alternative is more expensive. Further, given the shortage of police officers in San Francisco today, there may not be enough staff to regularly serve clients who might be interested in purchasing their services.
California has also given property owners the ability to form their own Business Improvement Districts (BIDs) since the 1990s. BIDs, also known locally as Community Benefit Districts (CBDs), are formed when owners representing a majority of the assessed valuation in a given area vote to tax themselves to finance district operations.
San Francisco's Union Square area, the hotel and retail center that borders the Tenderloin, has had a BID in place since 1999. By 2018, the district was employing a large staff of cleaning ambassadors and safety ambassadors to deal with trash and quality of life issues respectively. The BID also installed a network of security cameras.
But the district's efforts to force homeless individuals out of the area faced criticism from UC Berkeley's Public Policy Clinic and local activists. Since the pandemic, the BID, now known as the Union Square Alliance, may have become less effective at maintaining cleanliness and safety in its neighborhood. It is not clear whether this is due to the criticism it has received, the retirement of its long‐​time executive director, or some other factor.
Conclusion
An overly energetic lockdown and actions that concentrated violent and unstable individuals in the downtown area have contributed to the collapse of real estate values in San Francisco's prime hotel, office, and retail districts. Quasi‐​governmental institutions that might have stepped in to provide improved security and street conditions have been enfeebled in part by city policy.
At this point, it does not appear that any set of feasible policies can restore downtown San Francisco to the heights it reached in 2019. A more realistic possibility is that it will stabilize at much lower levels of occupancy, activity, and value forming a new base from which to grow. New and remaining property owners should be given the tools and the space to restore a sense of security among those visiting, shopping, and staying in the neighborhood. Finally, city and state leaders should avoid overreacting to pandemics.

 How it Started/How it is goingThe final episode of Better Call Saul is not just a finale to the series but to the entire Breaking Bad multiverse (to use the parlance of our times). While the first half of the season dealt with Better Call Saul as a separate show from Breaking Bad, dealing with the fates of characters such as Ignacio and Lalo who are named but never appear in the latter, the second half returns to its status as prequel and sequel. This is not just because of the appearances by Walt, Jesse, and Marie Schrader, but because it returns to the fundamental question of both shows and that is personal change and transformation. Was Jimmy always Saul dovetails with the question was Walt always Heisenberg. Or, as Chuck put it, can people really change?Breaking Bad famously ended with a negative answer to that question, with Walt's confession to Skyler that he enjoyed every minute of being Heisenberg, that the power was always his dream. It initially seems very much that Better Call Saul is going in the same direction. Twice during the episode Saul brings up the hypothetical situation of a time machine, once to Mike and once to Walt, to ask them what they would go back to and change. Mike uses the question to rewrite his entire life story, to never take a bribe as a cop and thus never become the drug enforcer out in the desert with a sniper rifle. Saul, however, seems free of regret in both conversations. When talking with Mike in the desert he does not want to go back and change the actions that caused the death of his brother, and when talking with Walt in a flashback to the basement of the vacuum cleaner supply he does not want to go back and change the actions that led to the death of Howard. He only wants more money and to save his bad knee from his life as Slippin' Jimmy. To the latter Walt replies, "So, you have always been like this," stressing, as Chuck did, the continuity of Slippin' Jimmy the conman and Saul Goodman the lawyer. Walt's answer to the time machine question returns the show to its subtext, the intersection of change, of personal change, and class transformation, with the idea that a person could change their class status, what Chantal Jaquet calls non-reproduction or transclass. Jaquet's concept of non-reproduction cuts between two different discourses on class and class reproduction. On the one side there are the various theories of social reproduction, from Bourdieu to Althusser who focus on the mechanisms, social, political, and ideological that reproduce the relations of production, keeping people in their class position. The sons and daughters of bodega owners end up owning their own bodega while the sons and daughters of partners at law firms can one day make partner. On the other side there are the various ideals, or even ideologies, that claim that anyone can make it, can pull themselves by their bootstraps and transform their class position. These two discourses are divided as much by their respective anthropologies as their politics. Reproduction, the reproduction of the relations of production, is understood to be the effect of multiple causes, economic, ideological, familial, while non-reproduction is generally attributed to the univocal and ahistorical effect of the will, ambition, or some other such attribute. As much as the side of non-reproduction is undermined at the level of theory, offering little more than homilies to the undaunted human spirit, it does have a case for itself at the level of experience: people do transcend their class position. This is the challenge of Jaquet's concept of tranclass, to think non-reproduction not as the effect of some individual agency or will, but as itself produced in and through the multiple determinations of reproduction. The multiplicity of causes that reproduce the social order, material, affective, imaginary, ideological, do not just reinforce it, but in their multiplicity there is also potential discord in their common score. The school, for example, can be as much a site of nonreproduction, of exposure to a different norms, habits, and ideas, as it is an institution of reproduction of the social order. Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul can be understood to produce their own particular perspectives on non-reproduction, its conditions, possibility and limits. Class transformation or its failure, Walter's failure to fit in amongst his upper class classmates and Chuck's success at becoming partner, are generally alluded to more than presented, they are more backdrop than narrative. What we get in its place is a far more spectacular, and one could argue entertaining, transformation of a chemistry teacher into a drug kingpin as well as that of a former conman turned mail clerk into a corrupt lawyer.Walt's answer to the time machine question, that he would go back and stay on as partner to Gray Matter make his money legitimately, reveals both the identity and non-identity of Walt and Heisenberg. It was always about money, and the power connected to money and thus Walt was always Heisenberg, but also that Heisenberg is a return of Walt's fantasies of class transformation, of becoming a member of the "upper class" of someone who drives something better than an Aztec and does not have to worry about such mundane things as water heater issues (also referenced in the final episode). Saul does not mention Chuck, or his own attempts to lift himself by the bootstraps in the mailroom of Hamlin, Hamlin, and McGill to become James McGill, Esquire in his conversation with Walt, but we do get a flashback to Chuck. In that flashback we are reminded that Chuck has successfully transformed himself from the son of a bodega owner from Cicero, Illinois to a law partner who reads the Financial Times. The flashback also shows us what Jimmy ultimately says about his relation with his brother, that his attempt to destroy him, to take away the one thing he loved, practicing the law, was in part a product of their failed relationship, of a failure to connect. We also see a different side of Chuck, one that we might have forgotten, not the Chuck that insists that "people don't change." that Jimmy will always be Slippin' Jimmy, but the Chuck that wanted a connection with his brother, a Chuck that in his own way appreciated his brother's efforts or at least was willing to discuss his cases with him. As befitting a show about a lawyer, Better Call Saul's closing arguments about change and transformation happen in a court room. We see Saul/Jimmy give two different version of the common narrative that connects Walt/Heisenberg and Jimmy/Saul, two different summations of the intertwined plots of Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul. The first, delivered before a federal prosecutor is a lie, a con, Saul tells the story of a man who was terrified of Walt, who did everything out of fear, a story that only he can tell because he knows about the bodies. The point of this story is not to convince the prosecutor, not to argue for leniency, but to demonstrate what he, Saul, is a capable of, that the same story could convince a jury to change their mind, and he only needs one juror. The scam works. Saul is offered an incredibly light sentence of seven years to be severed in the poshest prison in the Federal system, the one for the likes of Bernie Madoff. Saul too would successfully make the change to become a member of the upper class even if it is just as a white collar criminal.Saul cannot leave it at that, and in his last push to prove that he has won, that he cannot be beaten (and to score some good ice cream) he learns that Kim has come clean, confessed her involvement in the destruction and death of Howard Hamlin. This leads to a second retelling of the narrative. In the courtroom Saul tells a different story of his involvement with Heisenberg, not the story of a man afraid of a vicious criminal enterprise, but of a man driven by desire, by greed. As with the earlier telling this story is said to the judge but she is not the intended audience. His confession is meant for Kim who is in the courtroom. The first audience, the judge, restores his sentence to eighty six years, while the latter, Kim, makes possible his forgiveness and his transformation back to Jimmy. In an odd Möbius like twist Saul is never more Saul when he claims to be Jimmy, when he tells the story of being frightened by Heisenberg it is all a con, but he finally becomes Jimmy when he narrates his life as Saul, when he claims to be the immoral monster of greed that everyone thinks he has been all along. He is Saul when he claims to be Jimmy and finally becomes Jimmy again when he tells his life story in the character of Saul with all of the bravado and ego one would expect. Jimmy/Saul lives out the last of his life in a federal prison, and not the one reserved for the likes of Madoff. He has not entirely shed the multicolor skin of Saul, and to some extent his Saul skin protects him. There are a lot of people in federal prison with fond memories of the "criminal lawyer." He is visited by Kim, and thus in some sense redeemed. The relation with Kim sets up one last parallel. We see a long montage of Kim's post Saul life in Florida, maintaining the website of a irrigation supply company, eating tuna salad, and discussing office gossip, it is the blandest life possible right down to the sex with a man who says "Yep" while climaxing as if he is discussing mayonnaise. These scenes, shot in the black and white that washout the color of Gene's life in Omaha remind us that there are other ways of being confined than a federal penitentiary. What is doing time in a prison compared to doing time in a cubicle. To quote J Church, "Prison guards are our daily banalities." Breaking Bad ended with two nightmare versions of life in contemporary capitalism, Walt's impoverished retirement into poverty and exile in New Hampshire and Jesse being forced to work, Better Call Saul also ends with two images of straight life, one in prison and one in Florida, but who is to say which is worse. This parallel undermines the moralism of the final episode. Kim was right, the real thing that one has to break bad from is a life spent in work. Breaking out of that world is something no confession, no con, can get you free from. 

Riječ uredništvaPrije nekoliko godina u jednom dvobroju Šumarskog lista pojasnili smo zadaću ove rubrike. Naglasili smo da ona nije zamišljena da podučava šumarske stručnjake o šumarstvu (struku su učili na Fakultetu), nego da podsjetimo na aktualnosti koje se događaju u šumi i šumarskoj struci. Navodeći činjenice, nastojimo pomoći da šumarska praksa, pa i znanost, lakše zauzme stav o pojedinom aktualnom stručnom problemu ili događanjima kako bi štitila šumu i struku. Stoga, osvrnimo se na prošlogodišnje rubrike koje nam ukazuju na probleme koji nas očekuju.U dvobroju 1-2/2021. najavili smo cjelogodišnje obilježavanje 175-e obljetnice osnivanja Hrvatskoga šumarskog društva (1846. g.) i 145-e obljetnice (1877. g) tiskanja znanstveno-stručnog i staleškog glasila Šumarskog lista. Naveli smo kako je Hrvatsko šumarsko društvo, uz ostalo, ostvarilo svoja dva glavna cilja: uvođenje više šumarske nastave u Hrvatskoj osnivanjem Gospodarsko-šumarskog učilišta u Križevcima 1860. godine, a potom Šumarske akademije (danas Šumarski fakultet) 1898. godine kao četvrte visokoškolske ustanove Zagrebačkog sveučilišta. Tiskanjem prvoga broja svojega glasila, Šumarskog lista 1. siječnja 1877. godine, ostvaren je i drugi cilj. Posebno smo istaknuli kako je već tada usvojeno mišljenje da je za gospodarenje šumskim ekosustavima potrebno visokoškolsko obrazovanje. Upitali smo se kakva je danas situacija sa šumarskom strukom? Zaključili smo: nikakva – svi znaju sve o šumi, a nisu niti "primirisali" šumarsko obrazovanje bilo kojega ranga. Skrenuli smo pozornost na netržišno gospodarenje šumskim resursima, posebice najvrjednijima, kada izvozom drvne sirovine, a ne drvoprerađivačkih proizvoda izvozimo radna mjesta i obezvrjeđujemo dugogodišnji trud šumarskih stručnjaka.U dvobroju 3-4/2021. raspravljali smo na temu teksta Thomasa Waitza, zastupnika Zelenih u EU, objavljenog pod bombastičnim naslovom "Novo izvješće o krčenju šuma u Hrvatskoj", na kojega su se odmah "zalijepili" naši Zeleni. Nakon više od 250 godina gospodarenja našim šumama po načelu potrajnog gospodarenja, ovaj naslov je uvreda hrvatskim stručnjacima. Osim toga, ovo je poistovjećivanje pojmova krčenja i kontrolirane sječe šuma, što je očiti primjer neznanja, bolje rečeno amaterizma koji danas preplavljuje ne samo šumarsku nego i druge struke. Svakako preporučamo opetovano pročitati ovu Riječ Uredništva, kako bi imali jaču podlogu za eventualnu raspravu o odnosnoj temi.U dvobroju 5-6/2021. rubriku smo posvetili "Odlasku čovjeka koji je život posvetio šumi i šumarstvu". Bez obzira na njegov životni put opširno prikazan u rubrici In memoriam, osvrnuli smo se kratko na najvažnije dijelove toga životnog puta, zaključujući: "Odlaskom profesora Matića završilo je jedno razdoblje, koje će nama suvremenicima ostati u sjećanju kao nezaboravno iskustvo, plemenitog, šumarskog načina života i zajedništva, a koje je rezultiralo njegovanim i očuvanim šumama. Hoće li novi trendovi koji su sve izraženiji u današnjem šumarstvu, a prema kojima su šumarski stručnjaci sve manje povezani sa šumom, ali i međusobno, uspjeti odgovoriti na nove izazove, posebice u okolnostima sve izraženijih klimatskih promjena, tek je za vidjeti."U dvobroju 7-8/2021. uz temu: Tko je kriv za loše poslovanje drvoprerađivača? navodimo tekst Europskoga šumarskog instituta i Svjetske banke pod naslovom "Pregled i preporuka za sustav prodaje drvne sirovine Hrvatskih šuma". Čitamo da se kod nas 93 % drvnih proizvoda prodaje administrativno na temelju dugoročnih ugovora, a tržišno samo 5 % (Poljska 89-90 %, Češka 96 %, a Estonija i Francuska približno 100 % tržišno). Hrvatska prodaje drvnu sirovinu po 20-30 % nižoj cijeni u usporedbi s europskim cijenama i cijenama u susjednim zemljama, što čini gubitak od oko 316 milijuna kuna godišnje (hrast 163 milijuna kn, bukva 105 milijuna kn, smreka i jela 48 milijuna kn). S obzirom na gospodarenje po načelu potrajnosti te na kvalitetu i prirodnost naših šuma (čime je osiguran i FSC certifikat – od čega najveći benefit ubiru upravo drvoprerađivači), mišljenja smo da je gubitak i veći.Što donosi nova EU strategija za šume do 2030. tema je dvobroja 9-10/2021. Smatra se ključnim za ostvarivanje ciljeva Europskoga zelenog plana, smanjenje emisija stakleničkih plinova za najmanje 55 % do 2030. i klimatske neutralnosti do 2050. godine. Pomaže i ispunjavanje ciljeva EU-a za povećanje uklanjanja CO2 prirodnim ponorima prema Zakonu o klimi. Strategijom se šumi, šumarima i sektoru koji se temelji na šumi daje središnja uloga u ostvarivanju tih ciljeva. Uz njihovu pomoć očekuje se europski prelazak na moderno, klimatski neutralno, resursno učinkovito i konkurentno gospodarstvo.U dvobroju 11-12/2021. pokušali smo sažeti nazovimo prognoze "Što nam donosi Glazgovska klimatska konferencija". U sklopu potpisane Deklaracije o korištenju šuma i zemljišta, koju je do sada podržalo preko 140 država u kojima se nalazi više od 90% svjetskih šuma, čelnici zemalja obvezali su se zajednički raditi na zaustavljanju i preokretanju gubitka šuma i degradacije zemljišta do 2030. godine. Glavni cilj konferencije odnosio se na ograničavanje povišenja globalne prosječne temperature na razinu koja je znatno niža od 2°C iznad razine u predindustrijskom razdoblju. Ovdje nas zabrinjava činjenica da mnogi neupućeni, a mjerodavni, poistovjećuju krčenje šuma i kontroliranu sječu šuma koja je uzgojni zahvat u održavanju, a posebice u obnovi šumskih sastojina. Usprkos našoj visokoj šumovitosti, to bi nam u budućnosti moglo bitno utjecati na dosadašnji dokazano uspješni način gospodarenja našim šumama.Uredništvo ; EditorialWe explained the mission of this column in a double issue of Forestry Journal several years ago. We pointed out that the intention of the column was not to teach forestry experts about forestry (the profession which they study at the faculty), but to point to some current events taking place in the forest and the forestry profession. By stating the facts, we try to help the forestry practice and science to take a stand on a particular professional problem or event, all with the view of protecting the forest and the profession. Therefore, let us remind ourselves of last year's columns, which point to the problems that await us in the future.In the double issue 1-2/2021 we announced the year-round celebration of the 175th anniversary of the founding of the Croatian Forestry Society (1846) and the 145th anniversary (1877) of the publication of the scientific-professional paper Forestry Journal. Among other things, we pointed out that the Croatian Forestry Society achieved its two main goals. The first was the introduction of higher forestry education in Croatia by founding the College of Agriculture and Forestry in Križevci in 1860 and the Academy of Forestry (the present Faculty of Forestry) in 1898 as the fourth higher education institution of the University of Zagreb. The second goal was achieved by publishing the first issue of Forestry Journal on January 1st, 1877. We especially emphasised that the awareness of the need for higher education to manage forest ecosystems was keenly felt even then. We asked ourselves what the current situation was regarding the forestry profession. We concluded it was dire: everybody knows everything about the forest without having the slightest idea of the forestry profession. We also drew attention to the non-market management of forest resources, particularly the most valuable ones, when by exporting wood raw material instead of wood processing products, we export jobs and devalue the long-lasting hard work of forestry experts. In the double issue 3-4/2021, we discussed the text by Thomas Waitz, representative of the Green Party in the EU, published under the bombastic title "New Report on Deforestation in Croatia", which our Greens immediately "embraced". In view of over 250 years of managing our forests according to the principle of sustainable management, this title is an insult to Croatian experts. In addition, this mixing up of the concepts of deforestation and controlled felling of forests is a blatant example of ignorance, or rather amateurism, which today permeates not only forestry but also other professions. We warmly recommend rereading this Editorial in order to gain a stronger basis for a possible debate of this subject.The Editorial in the double issue 5-6/2021, was entitled "The demise of a man who has devoted his life to forests and forestry". Although his life path was extensively presented in the column "In memoriam", we briefly described the most important points of his life path, concluding: "The demise of Professor Matić ends a period which we, his contemporaries, will always look upon as an unforgettable experience of living a noble foresters' life in togetherness, the result of which are well-tended and preserved forests. Will the new trends, increasingly visible in present day forestry, in which foresters have less and less contact with forests and with their colleagues, be able to respond to all the challenges, particularly in the light of distinct climate changes, remains to be seen." The topic of the double issue 7-8/2021 "Who is to blame for poor business results of wood processors?" is accompanied by the text of the European Forestry Institute and the World Bank, entitled "A survey and recommendations for the wood raw material sale system in the company Croatian Forests Ltd." According to the text, 93 % of wood products in Croatia are sold administratively on the basis of long-term contracts, and only 5 % are sold on the market (Poland 89 - 90 %, Czechia 96 %, and Estonia and France about 100 % on the market). Compared to European prices and prices in neighbouring countries, Croatia sells wood raw material at prices which are 30 – 30 % lower, which incurs a loss of about 316 million kuna annually (oak 163 million kuna, beech 105 million kuna, spruce and fir 48 million kuna). Taking into consideration the principles of sustainable management, as well as the quality and naturalness of Croatian forests (which has earned them the FSC certificate – of which it is the wood processors who reap the highest benefits), we suspect that the losses are even higher than the ones mentioned above. The topic of the double issue 9-10/2021 was "What does the new EU forest strategy for 2030 bring?" A core part of the European Green Deal, this strategy anticipates a reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by at least 55 % by 2030 and a climate-neutral continent by 2050. It also helps meet EU targets to increase CO2 removal through natural sinks under the Climate Act. The strategy gives forests, foresters and the forest-based sector a central role in meeting these targets. With their help, a European transition to a modern, climate-neutral, resource-efficient and competitive economy is expected. The double issue 11-12/2021 was concerned with predictions contained in the text "What does the Glasgow Conference bring us?" As part of the signed Declaration on Forests and Land Use, which has so far been supported by over 140 countries in which more than 90 % of world's forests are located, the leaders pledged to work together to "halt and reverse forest loss and land degradation" by 2030. The main objective of the conference was to limit the increase in global average temperature to a level significantly lower than 2°C above the level in the pre-industrial period. Here, we are concerned about the fact that those who are uninformed, but in position of authority, equate deforestation and controlled felling, which is a silvicultural operation performed in order to maintain and regenerate forest stands. Despite the fact that Croatia is highly forested, this could significantly affect our proven success in the management of our forests.Editorial Board

Smart, R. L., et al. (Gaia Collaboration) ; [Aims] We produce a clean and well-characterised catalogue of objects within 100 pc of the Sun from the Gaia Early Data Release 3. We characterise the catalogue through comparisons to the full data release, external catalogues, and simulations. We carry out a first analysis of the science that is possible with this sample to demonstrate its potential and best practices for its use. [Methods] Theselection of objects within 100 pc from the full catalogue used selected training sets, machine-learning procedures, astrometric quantities, and solution quality indicators to determine a probability that the astrometric solution is reliable. The training set construction exploited the astrometric data, quality flags, and external photometry. For all candidates we calculated distance posterior probability densities using Bayesian procedures and mock catalogues to define priors. Any object with reliable astrometry and a non-zero probability of being within 100 pc is included in the catalogue. [Results] We have produced a catalogue of 331 312 objects that we estimate contains at least 92% of stars of stellar type M9 within 100 pc of the Sun. We estimate that 9% of the stars in this catalogue probably lie outside 100 pc, but when the distance probability function is used, a correct treatment of this contamination is possible. We produced luminosity functions with a high signal-to-noise ratio for the main-sequence stars, giants, and white dwarfs. We examined in detail the Hyades cluster, the white dwarf population, and wide-binary systems and produced candidate lists for all three samples. We detected local manifestations of several streams, superclusters, and halo objects, in which we identified 12 members of Gaia Enceladus. We present the first direct parallaxes of five objects in multiple systems within 10 pc of the Sun. [Conclusions] We provide the community with a large, well-characterised catalogue of objects in the solar neighbourhood. This is a primary benchmark for measuring and understanding fundamental parameters and descriptive functions in astronomy. ; The Gaia mission and data processing have financially been supported by, in alphabetical order by country: the Algerian Centre de Recherche en Astronomie, Astrophysique et Géophysique of Bouzareah Observatory; the Austrian Fonds zur Förderung der wissenschaftlichen Forschung (FWF) Hertha Firnberg Programme through grants T359, P20046, and P23737; the BELgian federal Science Policy Office (BELSPO) through various PROgramme de Développement d'Expériences scientifiques (PRODEX) grants and the Polish Academy of Sciences – Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek through grant VS.091.16N, and the Fonds de la Recherche Scientifique (FNRS); the Brazil-France exchange programmes Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP) and Coordenação de Aperfeicoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) – Comité Français d'Evaluation de la Coopération Universitaire et Scientifique avec le Brésil (COFECUB); the National Science Foundation of China (NSFC) through grants 11573054 and 11703065 and the China Scholarship Council through grant 201806040200; the Tenure Track Pilot Programme of the Croatian Science Foundation and the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne and the project TTP-2018-07-1171 "Mining the Variable Sky", with the funds of the Croatian-Swiss Research Programme; the Czech-Republic Ministry of Education, Youth, and Sports through grant LG 15010 and INTER-EXCELLENCE grant LTAUSA18093, and the Czech Space Office through ESA PECS contract 98058; the Danish Ministry of Science; the Estonian Ministry of Education and Research through grant IUT40-1; the European Commission's Sixth Framework Programme through the European Leadership in Space Astrometry (ELSA) Marie Curie Research Training Network (MRTN-CT-2006-033481), through Marie Curie project PIOF-GA-2009-255267 (Space AsteroSeismology & RR Lyrae stars, SAS-RRL), and through a Marie Curie Transfer-of-Knowledge (ToK) fellowship (MTKD-CT-2004-014188); the European Commission's Seventh Framework Programme through grant FP7-606740 (FP7-SPACE-2013-1) for the Gaia European Network for Improved data User Services (GENIUS) and through grant 264895 for the Gaia Research for European Astronomy Training (GREAT-ITN) network; the European Research Council (ERC) through grants 320360 and 647208 and through the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation and excellent science programmes through Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant 745617 as well as grants 670519 (Mixing and Angular Momentum tranSport of massIvE stars – MAMSIE), 687378 (Small Bodies: Near and Far), 682115 (Using the Magellanic Clouds to Understand the Interaction of Galaxies), and 695099 (A sub-percent distance scale from binaries and Cepheids – CepBin); the European Science Foundation (ESF), in the framework of the Gaia Research for European Astronomy Training Research Network Programme (GREAT-ESF); the European Space Agency (ESA) in the framework of the Gaia project, through the Plan for European Cooperating States (PECS) programme through grants for Slovenia, through contracts C98090 and 4000106398/12/NL/KML for Hungary, and through contract 4000115263/15/NL/IB for Germany; the Academy of Finland and the Magnus Ehrnrooth Foundation; the French Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales (CNES), the Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR) through grant ANR-10-IDEX-0001-02 for the "Investissements d'avenir" programme, through grant ANR-15-CE31-0007 for project "Modelling the Milky Way in the Gaia era" (MOD4Gaia), through grant ANR-14-CE33-0014-01 for project "The Milky Way disc formation in the Gaia era" (ARCHEOGAL), and through grant ANR-15-CE31-0012-01 for project "Unlocking the potential of Cepheids as primary distance calibrators" (UnlockCepheids), the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) and its SNO Gaia of the Institut des Sciences de l'Univers (INSU), the "Action Fédératrice Gaia" of the Observatoire de Paris, the Région de Franche-Comté, and the Programme National de Gravitation, Références, Astronomie,et Métrologie (GRAM) of CNRS/INSU with the Institut National Polytechnique (INP) and the Institut National de Physique nucléaire et de Physique des Particules (IN2P3) co-funded by CNES; the German Aerospace Agency (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt e.V., DLR) through grants 50QG0501, 50QG0601, 50QG0602, 50QG0701, 50QG0901, 50QG1001, 50QG1101, 50QG1401, 50QG1402, 50QG1403, 50QG1404, and 50QG1904 and the Centre for Information Services and High Performance Computing (ZIH) at the Technische Universität (TU) Dresden for generous allocations of computer time; the Hungarian Academy of Sciences through the Lendület Programme grants LP2014-17 and LP2018-7 and through the Premium Postdoctoral Research Programme (L. Molnár), and the Hungarian National Research, Development, and Innovation Office (NKFIH) through grant KH_18-130405; the Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) through a Royal Society - SFI University Research Fellowship (M. Fraser); the Israel Science Foundation (ISF) through grant 848/16; the Agenzia Spaziale Italiana (ASI) through contracts I/037/08/0, I/058/10/0, 2014-025-R.0, 2014-025-R.1.2015, and 2018-24-HH.0 to the Italian Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica (INAF), contract 2014-049-R.0/1/2 to INAF for the Space Science Data Centre (SSDC, formerly known as the ASI Science Data Center, ASDC), contracts I/008/10/0, 2013/030/I.0, 2013-030-I.0.1-2015, and 2016-17-I.0 to the Aerospace Logistics Technology Engineering Company (ALTEC S.p.A.), INAF, and the Italian Ministry of Education, University, and Research (Ministero dell'Istruzione, dell'Università e della Ricerca) through the Premiale project "MIning The Cosmos Big Data and Innovative Italian Technology for Frontier Astrophysics and Cosmology" (MITiC); the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) through grant NWO-M-614.061.414, through a VICI grant (A. Helmi), and through a Spinoza prize (A. Helmi), and the Netherlands Research School for Astronomy (NOVA); the Polish National Science Centre through HARMONIA grant 2018/06/M/ST9/00311, DAINA grant 2017/27/L/ST9/03221, and PRELUDIUM grant 2017/25/N/ST9/01253, and the Ministry of Science and Higher Education (MNiSW) through grant DIR/WK/2018/12; the Portugese Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT) through grants SFRH/BPD/74697/2010 and SFRH/BD/128840/2017 and the Strategic Programme UID/FIS/00099/2019 for CENTRA; the Slovenian Research Agency through grant P1-0188; the Spanish Ministry of Economy (MINECO/FEDER, UE) through grants ESP2016-80079-C2-1-R, ESP2016-80079-C2-2-R, RTI2018-095076-B-C21, RTI2018-095076-B-C22, BES-2016-078499, and BES-2017-083126 and the Juan de la Cierva formación 2015 grant FJCI-2015-2671, the Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture, and Sports through grant FPU16/03827, the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (MICINN) through grant AYA2017-89841P for project "Estudio de las propiedades de los fósiles estelares en el entorno del Grupo Local" and through grant TIN2015-65316-P for project "Computación de Altas Prestaciones VII", the Severo Ochoa Centre of Excellence Programme of the Spanish Government through grant SEV2015-0493, the Institute of Cosmos Sciences University of Barcelona (ICCUB, Unidad de Excelencia "María de Maeztu") through grants MDM-2014-0369 and CEX2019-000918-M, the University of Barcelona's official doctoral programme for the development of an R+D+i project through an Ajuts de Personal Investigador en Formació (APIF) grant, the Spanish Virtual Observatory through project AyA2017-84089, the Galician Regional Government, Xunta de Galicia, through grants ED431B-2018/42 and ED481A-2019/155, support received from the Centro de Investigación en Tecnologías de la Información y las Comunicaciones (CITIC) funded by the Xunta de Galicia, the Xunta de Galicia and the Centros Singulares de Investigación de Galicia for the period 2016-2019 through CITIC, the European Union through the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) / Fondo Europeo de Desenvolvemento Rexional (FEDER) for the Galicia 2014-2020 Programme through grant ED431G-2019/01, the Red Española de Supercomputación (RES) computer resources at MareNostrum, the Barcelona Supercomputing Centre – Centro Nacional de Supercomputación (BSC-CNS) through activities AECT-2016-1-0006, AECT-2016-2-0013, AECT-2016-3-0011, and AECT-2017-1-0020, the Departament d'Innovació, Universitats i Empresa de la Generalitat de Catalunya through grant 2014-SGR-1051 for project "Models de Programació i Entorns d'Execució Parallels" (MPEXPAR), and Ramon y Cajal Fellowship RYC2018-025968-I; the Swedish National Space Agency (SNSA/Rymdstyrelsen); the Swiss State Secretariat for Education, Research, and Innovation through the Mesures d'Accompagnement, the Swiss Activités Nationales Complémentaires, and the Swiss National Science Foundation; the United Kingdom Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council (PPARC), the United Kingdom Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), and the United Kingdom Space Agency (UKSA) through the following grants to the University of Bristol, the University of Cambridge, the University of Edinburgh, the University of Leicester, the Mullard Space Sciences Laboratory of University College London, and the United Kingdom Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL): PP/D006511/1, PP/D006546/1, PP/D006570/1, ST/I000852/1, ST/J005045/1, ST/K00056X/1, ST/K000209/1, ST/K000756/1, ST/L006561/1, ST/N000595/1, ST/N000641/1, ST/N000978/1, ST/N001117/1, ST/S000089/1, ST/S000976/1, ST/S001123/1, ST/S001948/1, ST/S002103/1, and ST/V000969/1.

In Giangastone Bolla's Program for the Review of Agricultural Law (1922) land ownership was a testing ground for the «modern transformations of property law» – on which Enrico Finzi – primarily with the «social function». Bolla observed the shift from ownership to the company; asserted that the link between agriculture and the state required the scholar of agricultural law to undertake the «social and economic reconstruction of the country». In view of the «social function» Arrigo Serpieri – since 1923 Undersecretary of State for Agriculture – promoted various legislative measures for the «integral reclamation»; the policy for agriculture was linked to the organization of the corporate state in fieri (Brugi, Arcangeli). The 1933 Consolidated Law (TU) aimed at the rehabilitation of the land to increase its productivity and improve the conditions of the peasants with land transformations of public interest, with possible expropriation of large estates and forced execution of reclamation works on private lands; from 1946 the Consolidated Law of 1933 will be considered an indication for the agrarian reform (Rossi Doria, Segni). In the first Congress of Agricultural Law, (Florence 1935), Maroi, Pugliatti, Serpieri, D'Amelio, Bolla, Ascarelli, Calamandrei discussed some issues, in the first place agricultural law as a factual experience, linked to rural life, irreducible to a uniform juridical order; hence the 'long duration' of the Jacini Report on the various agricultural Italy. In view of the civil codification, the jurists noted the insufficiency of the individualistic system; placed the request for rules focused on the good and not on the subjects, up to the overcoming of the distinction between public and private law. The most illustrious Italian jurists intervened in the volume promoted by the Confederation of agricultural workers; The Fascist conception of property expressed the detachment from the liberal conception – with an emphasis on land ownership based on work (Ferrara, Panunzio) – and held firm to private initiative (Filippo Vassalli). Bolla reiterated the particularity of land ownership between the corporate system and the civil code project, «a private institution, aided and regulated by the State», with the owner «moderator et arbiter» of his own initiative. In the civil code of 1942, land ownership made sense of the dynamic aspect of productive activity, without contemplating the «social function» as a «new property right» (Pugliatti, Vassalli, D'Amelio).After the fall of the fascist regime, the struggles in the countryside forced Minister Gullo to plan agrarian contracts and regulate the occupation of uncultivated lands, with multiyear concessions to the occupying peasants; the De Gasperi award compensated the sharecroppers. The different economies of the 'different agrarian Italy' did not recommend a uniform agrarian reform; the reorganized political parties aimed at the distribution of expropriated lands, compensation to the private owner, without damaging the right of ownership. The initial action of the State to erode the large estates, with special reform bodies, had as its purpose the enhancement of small peasant property (Segni, Bandini). To combine private property and social interest in Constitution, Mortati motivated his proposal for a «constitutional statute»; Fanfani asked for «an article that speaks expressly of the land». The large estate was the most urgent but divisive issue, between Di Vittorio, who asked for its «abolition», and Einaudi for its «transformation», a choice that was imposed in the name of the various 'rural Italy'; the proposal for a rule intended to hinder large landholdings was not accepted. Article 44 of the Constitution provided for a law to impose «obligations and constraints on private land ownership», in order to «achieve rational land use and fair social relations». Bolla appreciated the choice of «transforming individual property into social property»; Vassalli wrote about a non-original «handbook for resolving the agrarian problem». In the project of the Minister for Agriculture Segni – who managed to launch a contested agrarian reform – art. 44 dictated tasks to the «future legislator»; the Sila law of 21 May 1950, the excerpt law of 21 October 1950 for particularly depressed areas, the bills on agricultural contracts were discussed in the Third Congress of Agricultural Law and in the first International Conference, promoted by Bolla, with interventions by Bassanelli, Segni, Capograssi, Pugliatti, Santoro Passarelli, Mortati, Esposito. Work was considered the architrave of land ownership, «a continually changing right, which must be modeled on social needs» (Bolla). In this context, the theoretical-practical, juridical-political reflection of Mario Bracci, professor of administrative law in Siena, rector, also in charge of teaching agricultural law, is interesting. Representative of the PdA at the National Council in the Agriculture Commission, Bracci proposed to write a «book on the socialization of the land», never published; the personal archive offers a wealth of notes previously unpublished on the subject. Bracci defined land ownership as the lintel of agricultural law and a crossroads of private and public law, between land reclamation laws, civil codification, art. 44 of the Constitution, the agrarian reform, understood as a «problem of justice». From Fascism tothe Republic, Bracci grasped technical continuities and ideological discontinuities in the structure of landed property, considered to be of constitutional significance, in referring to the person, «the conditions of the person are inextricably linked to those of landed property». As a scholar and professor of administrative law and agricultural law, since July 1944 Bracci intended to respond to the conflict in the countryside, mediating between «public purposes of agricultural production and the needs of social justice»; proposed «adequate legal forms which are forms of public law». ; Nel Programma di Giangastone Bolla per la Rivista di diritto agrario (1922) la proprietà fondiaria era banco di prova delle «moderne trasformazioni del diritto di proprietà» – su cui Enrico Finzi – in primo luogo con la «funzione sociale». Nell'azienda agraria Bolla osservava inoltre lo spostamento dalla proprietà all'impresa; asseriva che il legame tra l'agricoltura e lo Stato imponeva allo studioso del diritto agrario l'impegno per la «ricostruzione sociale ed economica del paese». In vista della «funzione sociale» Arrigo Serpieri – dal 1923 sottosegretario di Stato all'Agricoltura – promuoveva diversi provvedimenti legislativi per la «bonifica integrale»; la politica per l'agricoltura si legava all'organizzazione dello Stato corporativo in fieri (Brugi, Arcangeli). Il Testo unico del 1933 mirava al risanamento della terra per aumentarne la produttività e migliorare le condizioni dei contadini con trasformazioni fondiarie di pubblico interesse, con possibili espropri di latifondi ed esecuzione coatta di lavori di bonifica su terre private; dal 1946 il Testo unico del 1933 sarà considerato una indicazione per la riforma agraria (Rossi Doria, Segni). Nel primo Congresso di diritto agrario, (Firenze 1935), Maroi, Pugliatti, Serpieri, D'Amelio, Bolla, Ascarelli, Calamandrei discutevano alcune questioni, in primo luogo il diritto agrario come esperienza fattuale, legato alla vita rurale, irriducibile ad un ordine giuridico uniforme; da qui la lunga durata della 'fortuna' dell Relazione Jacini sulle diverse Italie agrarie. In vista della codificazione civile, i giuristi rilevavano l'insufficienza dell'impianto individualistico; ponevano l'istanza di norme incentrate sul bene e non sui soggetti, fino al superamento della distinzione tra diritto pubblico e privato. I più illustri giuristi italiani scrivevano nel volume promosso dalla Confederazione dei lavoratori dell'agricoltura; La Concezione fascista della proprietà esprimeva il distacco dalla concezione liberale – con l'accento sulla proprietà della terra fondata sul lavoro (Ferrara, Panunzio) – e teneva ferma l'iniziativa privata (Filippo Vassalli). Bolla ribadiva la particolarità della proprietà fondiaria tra ordinamento corporativo e progetto del codice civile, «istituto a base privata, aiutato e disciplinato dallo Stato», con il titolare «moderator et arbiter» della propria iniziativa. Nel codice civile del 1942 la proprietà fondiaria aveva senso dell'aspetto dinamico dell'attività produttiva, senza contemplare la «funzione sociale» come «nuovo diritto di proprietà» (Pugliatti, Vassalli, D'Amelio).Dopo la caduta del regime fascista le lotte nelle campagne imponevano al ministro Gullo di progare i contratti agrari e regolare l'occupazione delle terre incolte, con concessioni pluriennali ai contadini occupanti; il lodo De Gasperi indennizzava i mezzadri. Le differenti economie delle 'diverse Italie agrarie' sconsigliavano una riforma uniforme (Rossi Doria, Serpieri); i riorganizzati partiti politici miravano alla ripartizione delle terre espropriate e ad indennizzi al proprietario privato, senza lesioni del diritto di proprietà. L'iniziale azione dello Stato ad erosione del latifondo, con appositi Enti di riforma, aveva per scopo la valorizzazione della piccola proprietà contadina (Segni, Bandini). Per coniugare proprietà privata ed interesse sociale nella Costituzione Mortati motivava la sua proposta di «statuizione costituzionale»; Fanfani chiedeva «un articolo che parli espressamente della terra». Il latifondo era la questione più urgente ma divisiva; Di Vittorio ne chiedeva l'«abolizione » ed Einaudi la «trasformazione», scelta che si imponeva in nome delle diverse 'Italie rurali'; non si recepiva la proposta di una norma intesa ad ostacolare le grandi proprietà terriere. L'articolo 44 della Costituzione prevedeva una legge a imporre «obblighi e vincoli alla proprietà terriera privata», al fine di «conseguire il razionale sfruttamento del suolo ed equi rapporti sociali». Bolla apprezzava la scelta di «trasformare la proprietà individuale in proprietà sociale»; Vassalli scriveva di un non originale «prontuario di risoluzione del problema agrario». Nel progetto del Ministro per l'agricoltura Segni – che riusciva a far varare una contrastata riforma agraria – l'art. 44 dettava compiti al «legislatore futuro»; la legge Sila 21 Maggio 1950, la legge stralcio del 21 Ottobre 1950 per le zone particolarmente depresse, i progetti di legge sui contratti agrari erano discussi nel Terzo congresso di diritto agrario e nel primo Convegno internazionale, promosso da Bolla, con interventi di Bassanelli, Segni, Capograssi, Pugliatti, Santoro Passarelli, Mortati, Esposito. Il lavoro era considerato l'architrave della proprietà della terra, «diritto continuamente cangiante, che deve modellarsi sui bisogni sociali» (Bolla). In questo quadro è interessante la riflessione teorico-pratica, giuridico-politica di Mario Bracci, docente di diritto amministrativo a Siena, rettore, incaricato anche dell'insegnamento di diritto agrario. Rappresentante del PdA alla Consulta nazionale nella Commissione agricoltura, Bracci si proponeva di scrivere un «libro sulla socializzazione della terra», mai pubblicato; l'Archivio personale offre una mole di appunti finora inediti sul tema. Bracci collocava nella storia la proprietà della terra, che aveva senso nel «lavoro»; la definiva architrave del diritto agrario e crocevia di diritto privato e pubblico, tra le leggi di bonifica, la codificazione civile, l'art. 44 della Costituzione, la riforma agraria, intesa come «problema di giustizia». Dal fascismo alla Repubblica Bracci coglieva continuità tecniche e discontinuità ideologiche nell'assetto dell'istituto di rilevanza costituzionale, «le condizioni della persona sono indissolubilmente legate a quelle della proprietà fondiaria». Da studioso e docente di diritto amministrativo e diritto agrario dal luglio 1944 Bracci intendeva rispondere al conflitto nelle campagne, mediando tra «fini pubblici della produzione agraria e le esigenze della giustizia sociale»; proponeva «forme giuridiche adeguate e che sono forme di diritto pubblico».

Purpose Sustainability reporting is becoming an increasingly prevalent form of both reporting of and a sophisticated way of suggesting a business entity's sustainable approach to generating profit. Although being relatively a new form of reporting, sustainability reporting has become somewhat prestigious form of communicating with stakeholders. In certain cases, sustainability reporting has become a necessity by law, yet it is not a widely practised form of reporting. Such cases are becoming even more widespread worldwide, with perhaps the Directive 2014/95/EU by the European Commission of the European Union (EU) most widely known. By the Directive effective from 2014, all entities in the EU starting on 1st January 2017 are to report on non-financial information, such as environmental, social and employee matters, as well as respect for human rights, anti-corruption, bribery matters, and other topics related to the impact an entity generates in its natural, social and economic environment. As a member state, Croatia has incorporated provisions of the Directive into its national Accounting Act, thus requiring all entities with more than the average number of 500 employees on their balance sheet data, a criterion stated in the Directive 2014/95/EU, to report on non-financial information, while it is encouraged that other entities should welcome and abide by this Directive as well. This requirement means that business entities should be prepared to disclose non-financial information on a timely basis of their own choice, but to do it regularly, just as it is being reported on financial matters in highly sophisticated and widely familiar financial statements. This requirement which was defined by the Directive and triggered the research questions of this thesis, aims to understand the level of readiness of business entities to meet this requirement. The literature review suggests that the application of sustainability principles in the internal processes impacts the quality of information disclosed in (external) sustainability reports. This leads to a research question concerning the methods used by business entities, i.e. practices that are the results of application of certain accounting methods (de facto harmonisation), as opposed to de jure accounting harmonisation, e.g. accounting methods set by law and/or accountancy profession. The purpose of this research is to examine the state of sustainability reporting in the hotel industry from the point of the de facto accounting harmonisation, thus assessing the level of preparedness of hotel business entities to comply with the law requirement defined by the Directive. Methodology The hypothesis of the research refers to correlation between the application of sustainability principles (environmental and social) in internal processes and the quality of sustainability reports. The research divides de facto into internal and external harmonisation. Such approach to the research requires a mixed methods research design, where qualitative and quantitative methods are sequentially and equivalently applied, meaning they are afforded equal weighting, with one method preceding the other. The external de facto harmonisation focuses on (available) external sustainability reports disclosed by the world's leading ten hotel groups (Marriott International, Accor Hotels, Wyndham Hotels and Resorts, Hilton, Hyatt Hotels Corporation, Jin Jiang International Hotel Management Company, Shangri-La Hotels and Resorts, Melia Hotels International, Intercontinental Hotel Group, NH Hotel Group) that were available for five reporting periods. The internal de facto harmonisation focuses on the internal processes in the hotel entities, which data was gathered by an online questionnaire e-mailed to large and medium-sized hotel entities (all having 50 or more employees) that are registered in the Republic of Croatia. The external de facto harmonisation is explored by quantitative methods, with data being gathered by content analysis of sustainability reports and measured by a harmonisation index. The internal de facto harmonisation is explored by qualitative methods, with data from the questionnaire being analysed by the use of descriptive and non-parametric (Kendall W test of concordance) statistics. The hypotheses were tested by Spearman's correlation coefficient. The data analysis did not provide statistically significant correlation between the application of sustainability principles and the quality of sustainability reports, thus not supporting the stated hypotheses. Findings The research results reveal very low levels of both external and internal de facto harmonisations. Also, very few environmental and social indicators moderately correlate with the quality of sustainability reports. Due to the experiences of using the Uniform System of Accounts for the Lodging Industry (USALI), it was expected that the level of de facto harmonisation among hotel groups and entities would be somewhat higher. The reason to consider USALI standards is that these are worldwide recognised standards used in the hotel industry practice for financial segment reporting, even in Croatia, thus making it an excellent starting point for creating a quality internal non-financial reporting, not only for internal but also for external users (stakeholders). These research results reveal that the hotel industry is aware of the importance of sustainability reporting and has been trying to implement it into its business, but the results also suggest the lack of support that comes from de jure harmonisation. Current trends in the de jure harmonisation suggest very different paths in sustainability reporting, depending upon the geographical area and the stakeholders in focus, resulting in quite different approaches to sustainability reporting, e.g. SASB Standards, GRI Standards, Integrated Reporting to name but a few. These research results suggest that de facto harmonisation to a certain degree may be correlated to and/or caused by the de jure harmonisation. Major limitations of the research are evident in the analysis of both the external and internal harmonisations. Although ten of the world-leading hotel groups' sustainability reports have been analysed, their collection required a meticulous approach and a constant scrutiny as to which reports should and which reports should not be included in the research. In this process, one of the challenges to overcome was the different time frames of these reports (the hotel groups were both reporting on a different time basis and by different reporting frameworks) as well as the different reporting frameworks that were applied over the period (different versions of the GRI frameworks, UN Global Compact or the framework of their own choice and such like). In general, there are very few sustainability reports available due to this being a relatively new kind of reporting. Although the biggest and the most significant hotel entities (hotel companies) in Croatia did fill out the questionnaire, the response rate was rather low, which also limited the research to the use of descriptive and non-parametric statistics. Even after the mandatory date for reporting on sustainability set by the Directive (entities with more than 500 employees), the number of these reports in Croatia did not increase simply because the majority of hotel entities in Croatia did not fall under this category, thus it not being mandatory to report on sustainability. Generally speaking, at the moment there are not enough either sustainability reports or responses available from the hotel entities to perform any kind of multivariate analysis and to test the causal relations, and to discover the true nature of both the external and internal de facto harmonisation in the hotel industry. A suggestion for further research is to find the most suitable way of upgrading current USALI Standards with environmental and social indicators, for these are a well-developed system in the field of internal financial reporting for internal users in the hotel industry, and as such could provide a methodological framework for improving sustainability reporting for internal and external users in the hotel industry. Another suggestion for further research would be to assess the internal and external impacts that affect the quality of the disclosed sustainability reports. Due to the diversity the hotel processes even within one country, a suggestion is that future researches should include both quantitative and qualitative methodologies and methods in order to generate the indicators and other relevant specific information needed in sustainability reporting. While quantitative methodology reveals why something is happening, qualitative methodology reveals the answers as to how and why something is happening. Regardless of the current situation, the history of the sustainability reporting development has proven that sustainability has been continuously evolving, suggesting it will continue this trend in the years to come. Yet, further evolvement of this reporting system inevitably presumes a higher level of quality of these reports and information therein disclosed, meaning that now that some kind of framework for sustainability reporting has been established, the next focus ought to be on the quality of the information disclosed therein. Another approach to consider in improving sustainability reporting is to motivate business entities to improve sustainability reporting "from the inside out", meaning that management ought to be motivated to report on the impact the business has on the environment and society, not only because of the legislation or to meet yet another requirement to be present in certain areas (e.g. stock exchanges), but also because sustainability reporting provides better recognition among the stakeholders in the hotel industry, including employees, wider society, management and others. This could be done by recognising such efforts though national, international and industry rewards (e.g. The Tourism Flower – Quality for Croatia), which all could signify the level of commitment of a business entity towards the full and quality implementation of sustainability reporting system in their operations. Originality of the research The research results of this doctoral dissertation present a significant contribution to the science and practice of sustainability reporting. Based on a comprehensive analysis of theoretical knowledge, standards, regulations, and examples of good practice, two original models were developed, one for assessing the quality of sustainability reports, and the other one for assessing the degree of harmonization of non-financial reports in the hotel industry. The need and approach to change the conventional accounting paradigm (financial reporting) are pointed out as a requirement to provide information for sustainable development that is relevant in the decision making process. Assessment of the quality of sustainability reporting of the world's most successful hotel companies and the practice of the Croatian hotel industry resulted in suggestions for improving de facto harmonization of the sustainability reporting system in the hotel industry. By continually expanding the knowledge of this new accounting paradigm focused on providing and disclosing specific non-financial information relevant to the internal and external users, a gradual change will come to the ways of earning the profit, which is to include environmental and social issues as well. Achieving a higher quality level of sustainability reports and their greater usefulness requires better cooperation of hotel management with stakeholders and the community as a whole, including the development of a national system for stimulating and rewarding application of sustainability principle in everyday operations, with sustainability reports becoming a new approach to assessing competitiveness and market visibility based on sustainability principles.

Abstract: This research devoted to analyze relationship between social media political marketing through trust, knowledge & voting intention of youth voters, regarding with Indonesia Presidential Election 2019. In total hundreds of respondents, with 51 women and 49 men, thus majority are Tanjungpura University students. With age 17-35 as young adults, actively on social media, indeed aware with presidential candidates 2019 of political marketing, for at least six months. By using online questionnaire and spread through social media, the data processed with SmartPLS 3.2.8. software. The methods is a causal research, based on Likert seven-point scale. Results, however revealed no significant relationship between social media political marketing with youth voting intention (H3). 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Las últimas reformas del código penal de 2010 y 2015 ponen de manifiesto que nuestro legislador empieza a entender que el derecho penal moderno solo se legitima, si trata de igual manera cualesquiera conductas gravemente lesivas para nuestra convivencia, incluso las realizadas por los sectores poderosos de nuestra sociedad, esto sucede cuando el derecho penal deja de ser derecho, destinado solo a aplicarse a los sectores sociales más desfavorecidos. Si bien la introducción de la responsabilidad penal de la persona jurídica se realiza en 2010 , la primera regulación comprensiva se realiza en la reforma de 2015, es, en este sentido, un paso significativo, al introducir los requisitos y condiciones de la compliance. Será tras la reforma de 2015 cuando el art. 31 bis CP indique taxativamente los requisitos y condiciones para llevar a cabo esta nueva tarea que se les impone, siendo el aspecto más novedoso de la reforma del Código Penal de 2015, la completa regulación en los apartados 2, 3, 4 y 5 del art. 31 bis del CP de los programas de cumplimiento normativo o compliance guides denominados en el Código Penal como modelos de organización y gestión. En cuanto a la eficacia preventiva del sistema compliance existe acuerdo en considerar que, con carácter general, un programa de cumplimiento efectivo ha de promover tres objetivos esenciales: prevención, un programa de cumplimiento efectivo tiene que prevenir conductas ilegales que puedan enfrentar a la compañía a una responsabilidad penal; detección, tiene que conducir a una detección temprana en orden a remediarlas; y paliación, una vez que el delito se ha cometido, un programa de cumplimiento eficaz debe ayudar tanto a mitigar la responsabilidad penal (eximentes) como a reducir la posible sanción (atenuación). La responsabilidad penal de las personas jurídicas supuso un cambio de paradigma del Derecho Penal de ultima ratio del Estado a prima ratio, al anticipar la respuesta en la resolución del problema, el Derecho Penal se incorpora a la prevención empresarial. Este cambio de paradigma ha supuesto una privatización de la lucha contra la corrupción toda vez que el Estado ha obligado a las empresas a adoptar medidas preventivas internas, que por otro lado el Estado "el otro lado de la carretera" no ha adoptado como organización. La incorporación al ordenamiento jurídico español de la responsabilidad penal de las personas jurídicas se produce en tres etapas diferenciadas: 2010 con su introducción, 2012 con la incorporación de los partidos políticos y los sindicatos, siendo la alteración del Código Penal de 2015 la clave, porque en ella se concretan los requisitos compliance. Es importante asimismo en la reforma de 2015: la creación del delito de financiación del terrorismo o de financiación ilegal de los partidos políticos; además de la ampliación de delitos contra bienes colectivos de carácter socioeconómico, medioambiental, urbanístico o relacionados con nuevas tecnologías; las mejoras en los delitos contra la comunidad internacional; o la lucha contra la corrupción, en especial la mejorada regulación del delito de cohecho o la introducción del delito de corrupción entre particulares. La formulación legal o régimen jurídico de la responsabilidad penal de las personas jurídicas se concentra en el Código Penal en diversos preceptos: 31 bis, 33.7 que describe las penas imponibles a las personas jurídicas; 52 sobre la forma de imponer la pena de multa y 53 referentes a la determinación y a la forma de pago de la pena de multa, 66 bis sobre medición y determinación de las penas imponibles a las personas jurídicas, 116.3 que declara que a la responsabilidad penal de la persona jurídica irá unida la responsabilidad civil y el art. 130 que advierte que la transformación o fusión de una persona jurídica no extingue su responsabilidad. ; As últimas reformas do código penal de 2010 e 2015 poñen de manifesto que o noso lexislador empeza a entender que o dereito penal moderno só lexitímase, se trata de igual maneira calquera condutas gravemente lesivas para a nosa convivencia, incluso as realizadas polos sectores poderosos da nosa sociedade, isto sucede cando o dereito penal deixa de ser dereito, destinado só a aplicarse aos sectores sociais máis desfavorecidos. Aínda que a introdución da responsabilidade penal da persoa xurídica realízase en 2010 , a primeira regulación comprensiva realízase na reforma de 2015, é, neste sentido, un paso significativo, ao introducir os requisitos e condicións da compliance. Será tras a reforma de 2015 cando o art. 31 bis CP indique taxativamente os requisitos e condicións para levar a cabo esta nova tarefa que se lles impón, sendo o aspecto máis novo da reforma do Código penal de 2015, a completa regulación nos apartados 2, 3, 4 e 5 do art. 31 bis do CP dos programas de cumprimento normativo ou compliance guides denominados no Código penal como modelos de organización e xestión. En canto á eficacia preventiva do sistema compliance existe acordo en considerar que, con carácter xeral, un programa de cumprimento efectivo ha de promover tres obxectivos esenciais: prevención, un programa de cumprimento efectivo ten que previr condutas ilegais que poidan enfrontar á compañía a unha responsabilidade penal; detección, ten que conducir a unha detección temperá en orde a remedialas; e paliación, unha vez que o delito se ha cometido, un programa de cumprimento eficaz debe axudar tanto a mitigar a responsabilidade penal (eximentes) como a reducir a posible sanción (atenuación). A responsabilidade penal das persoas xurídicas supuxo un cambio de paradigma do Dereito Penal de ultima cociente do Estado a prima cociente, ao anticipar a resposta na resolución do problema, o Dereito Penal incorpórase á prevención empresarial. Este cambio de paradigma supuxo unha privatización da loita contra a corrupción tendo en conta que o Estado obrigou ás empresas para adoptar medidas preventivas internas, que doutra banda o Estado "o outro lado da estrada" non adoptou como organización. A incorporación ao ordenamento xurídico español da responsabilidade penal das persoas xurídicas prodúcese en tres etapas diferenciadas: 2010 coa súa introdución, 2012 coa incorporación dos partidos políticos e os sindicatos, sendo a alteración do Código penal de 2015 a clave, porque nela concrétanse os requisitos compliance. É importante así mesmo na reforma de 2015: a creación do delito de financiamento do terrorismo ou de financiamento ilegal dos partidos políticos; ademais da ampliación de delitos contra bens colectivos de carácter socioeconómico, ambiental, urbanístico ou relacionados con novas tecnoloxías; as melloras nos delitos contra a comunidade internacional; ou a loita contra a corrupción, en especial a mellorada regulación do delito de suborno ou a introdución do delito de corrupción entre particulares. A formulación legal ou réxime xurídico da responsabilidade penal das persoas xurídicas concéntrase no Código penal en diversos preceptos: 31 bis, 33.7 que describe as penas impoñibles ás persoas xurídicas; 52 sobre a forma de impoñer a pena de multa e 53 referentes á determinación e á forma de pago da pena de multa, 66 bis sobre medición e determinación das penas impoñibles ás persoas xurídicas, 116.3 que declara que á responsabilidade penal da persoa xurídica irá unida a responsabilidade civil e o art. 130 que advirte que a transformación ou fusión dunha persoa xurídica non extingue a súa responsabilidade. ; The latest reforms of the penal code of 2010 and 2015 show that our legislator is beginning to understand that modern criminal law is only legitimized, if it treats equally any conduct seriously damaging to our coexistence, including those carried out by the powerful sectors of our society. society, this happens when the criminal law ceases to be right, intended only to apply to the most disadvantaged social sectors. Although the introduction of criminal liability of the legal entity is made in 2010, the first comprehensive regulation is made in the 2015 reform, it is, in this sense, a significant step, by introducing the requirements and conditions of compliance. It will be after the reform of 2015 when the art. 31 bis CP indicate taxativamente the requirements and conditions to carry out this new task that imposes them , being the newest appearance of the reform of the Penal Code of 2015, the complete regulation in the sections 2, 3, 4 and 5 of the art. 31 bis of the CP of the programs of normative fulfillment or compliance guides designated in the Penal Code like models of organisation and management. Regarding the preventive efficiency of the system compliance exists agreement in considering that, with general character, a program of effective fulfillment has to promote three essential aims: prevention, a program of effective fulfillment has to warn illegal behaviours that can confront to the company to a penal responsibility; detection, has to drive to an early detection with a view to remedy them; and paliación, once that the crime has committed , a program of effective fulfillment has to help so much to mitigate the penal responsibility ( eximentes) as to reduce the possible sanction (mitigation). The penal responsibility of the legal persons supposed a change of paradigm of the Penal Right of ultima ratio of the State to premium ratio, when anticipating the answer in the resolution of the problem, the Penal Right incorporates to the business prevention. This change of paradigm has supposed a privatisation of the fight against the corruption all time that the State has forced to the companies to adopt preventive measures interns, that on the other hand the State "the another side of the road" has not adopted like organisation. The incorporation to the juridical legislation Spanish of the penal responsibility of the legal persons produces in three stages differentiated: 2010 with his introduction, 2012 with the incorporation of the political parties and the unions, being the alteration of the Penal Code of 2015 the key, because in her concretise the requirements compliance. It is important likewise in the reform of 2015: the creation of the crime of finance of the terrorism or of illegal finance of the political parties; in addition to the enlargement of crimes against collective goods of socioeconomic character, environmental, urbanístico or related with new technologies; the improvements in the crimes against the international community; or the fight against the corruption, especially the improved regulation of the crime of cohecho or the introduction of the crime of corruption between individuals. The legal formulation or juridical diet of the penal responsibility of the legal persons concentrates in the Penal Code in diverse precepts: 31 bis, 33.7 that describes the penalties imponibles to the legal persons; 52 on the form to impose the penalty of fine and 53 referents to the determination and to the form of payment of the penalty of fine, 66 bis on measurement and determination of the penalties imponibles to the legal persons, 116.3 that declares that to the penal responsibility of the legal person will go joined the civil responsibility and the art. 130 that warns that the transformation or fusion of a legal person does not extinguish his responsibility.

Chapter 1 Over the last decade we have witnessed an improvement in the literature on how to measure and compare the well-being of individuals. While the standard approach in the analysis of individual well-being is based almost exclusively on a material dimension of income, there is a robust evidence that individuals care about non-income dimensions of life which accordingly should be included in such a measure. Nevertheless, even when the non-income dimensions of life are included in the analysis of individual well-being, a majority of studies are predominantly neglecting the notion of individual preferences in order to escape the problem of interpersonal comparisons of well-being. In this chapter we have employed an alternative welfare measure which takes into account income and non-income dimensions of life while at the same time the following measure is sensitive to the individual preferences. This is known as the equivalent income measure. We have compared the equivalent income and income measures over 25 countries of the European Union. The following analysis is done for 2007 and 2011, since these were the only available years that we could use. Our contribution to the literature is reflected in the fact, that to the best of our knowledge, there are no such studies in the literature that compares the well-being with the following two measures for such a large set of countries. Although we found that the welfare rankings across countries change to some extent between the average income and average equivalent income, in spite of that when we ranked countries according to the growth rates of income and equivalent income we observed a substantial change in the country rankings. The following evidence implies that the choice of the welfare metrics is empirically important. The previous results have been broadened by computing the welfare rankings across countries once we raise the concern about the egalitarian principle of justice. We observed that the welfare rankings across countries changed remarkably when we take into account distributional inequalities. The evidence we have found suggest that correlations of disadvantages between life dimensions matter since some countries have sufficiently larger inequalities of equivalent income than inequalities of incomes. The results we have found show that individuals across countries care about material dimension (income) but they also care much about the non-income dimensions. Relatively the most important non-income dimension for almost all countries is health while the least important non-income dimension concerns the (un)employment status. We have identified the worst off individuals according to each welfare measure and we have compared the socio-demographic characteristics of the worst off individuals. We have seen that different well-being measures will identify the worst off individuals with different socio-demographic characteristics. We have also observed that the worst off individuals considerably differ over countries with respect to their average income and non-income dimensions and average socio-demographic characteristics. Finally, we have illustrated the degree of re-ranking between income and equivalent income measures taking into account all individuals of a given country. While we found a similar pattern of re-ranking between income and equivalent income across countries, the degree of re-ranking differs across countries. The pattern that we have observed across all countries indicated that individuals who are income rich can end up as equivalent income poor while the opposite has not been found. ; Chapter 2 An important role of social and public policies, among others, is to provide employment opportunities and to maintain the initiative of people to work. Yet, the role of these policies should not exclusively be concerned with the improvement of job quantity, such as ensuring the optimal employment rate but likewise these policies should be designed to improve the well-being of workers by enhancing job quality. Although, the precise definition of job quality is lacking in the literature, one can reasonably argue that job quality is a multi-dimensional concept which includes the wage dimension but also non-wage job dimensions such as job autonomy, job security, whether a job is interesting, challenging, whether it offers a good career opportunities, etc. Accepting the idea that a job quality is a multi-dimensional concept leads to the important question of aggregating various job dimensions into an overall index of job quality which can be used as a measure of well-being on the job. Moreover, if we agree on the notion that the preferences of workers over job dimensions should be respected, then we have to find a proper way to weight these various job characteristics such that the construction of weights is consistent with the preference orderings over different jobs. A measure that satisfies the previous two requirements is known in the literature as the equivalent wage measure. In this study we have applied the concept of equivalent wage to a specific sub-population of recent graduates (bachelor, master and doctoral students) who are currently participating in the labour market. In addition to the equivalent wage measure, we have used four other well-being measures which are wage, average preferences objective measure, equal weights objective measure and subjective job satisfaction measure. We have compared the job quality using a large scale survey which includes nineteen countries. We have found that individuals with various personal characteristics have different preferences over wage and non-wage job dimensions. This result underlines the importance of considering the heterogeneity of individual preferences seriously. We have shown that different measures of job quality will result in substantially different ranking of countries. In other words, the evidence we have found points out to the fact that the choice of well-being measure is utterly important for measuring job quality. Since, we have observed a considerable re-ranking of countries between different measures, we were encouraged to provide the evidence on the strength and direction of relationship between the ranking for all pairs of measures. We have found that the rank correlation is positive and statistically significant for almost all pairwise correlations. The lowest correlation has been found between pairs of wage and equal weights objective measure while the highest correlation has been found between subjective job satisfaction and average preferences objective measure. As one important issue in creating a reasonable public policies is to identify those individuals who are not faring well or those who are faring very well, we have decided to identify the individuals at the bottom and top end of the distribution according to different measures of job quality. The results have shown that the overlap of the worst off when we use two measures is lowest for wage and equivalent wage measures while the largest overlap occurs when we use two objective measures. These results should not be surprising since the informational requirements between two objective measures are more alike than the informational requirements between wage and equivalent wage. On the other hand, the largest overlap of the best off individuals for a pair of measures occurs between average preferences and equal weights measures while the overlap is lowest between wage and subjective job satisfaction. We have evaluated the gender differential in job quality across countries by using wage and equivalent wage measures. The evidence we have found indicate that in majority of countries, the average quality of jobs is higher for men than for women if we use the wage measure. While even if we use the equivalent wage measure, the quality of jobs are higher among men in most countries, still we have observed that women are either holding jobs of the same quality or they are even faring better than men in some countries. In addition, we have computed the willingness-to-pay for each non-wage job characteristic and we have compared the gender differences in the willingness-to-pay across and within countries. We have found that across almost all countries, the willingness-to-pay is higher among men, which indicates that they are suffering more not reaching the best possible values of non-wage job characteristics. Finally, we have presented the decomposition the total willingness-to-pay on the contributions attributed to each non-wage job characteristic. We have found that across countries for both men and women, having a good career prospect is relatively the most important non-wage job characteristic while job security is relatively the least important non-wage job characteristic. ; Chapter 3 In recent decades there has been a growing number of studies that investigated the effects of personal and job characteristics on the subjective well-being on the job. Besides, the empirical findings reveal that workers who are paid on the piece rates exert more effort and earn more than those workers paid an hourly salary. Nevertheless, it is ambiguous what will be the effect of performance paying schemes, since the well-being on the job can increase in wage but it can decrease with higher level of excreted effort. Since the possible effect of performance paying jobs on the well-being of workers stay hidden, we have tackled the following issue in this chapter and we have provided the empirical evidence on these effects. This chapter contributes to the literature on the subjective well-being by providing the casual effects that the performance pay job schemes have on job satisfaction. We approximate the well-being on the job by the subjective job satisfaction reported by individuals. We have used the Korean Labour and Income Panel Survey which allowed us to distinguish between the workers who are paid by performance and those who are paid by fixed rate. In addition, we could exploit the information about the particular type of performance paying scheme that applies to the workers who are paid by performance. Since the personality traits are possibly correlated with the observed and unobserved explanatory variables, we have decided to estimate the job satisfaction regression using the fixed effects estimator. We have shown that workers in the performance pay job schemes have a higher subjective well-being on the job than workers who are using the non-performance pay job schemes. The following result holds true even after we have controlled for the level of earnings, attitudes toward risk and other personal and job related characteristics. This evidence is also confirmed for both men and women. When it comes down to the effect of wage on job satisfaction, we observe that the effect is not apparent as someone might expect. We have found that among all explanatory variables, health has the strongest effect on the well-being on the job. Finally, we have exploited the information on the type of performance pay schemes in order to analyse how different performance pay schemes affect job satisfaction. The results have shown that workers who are employed on the individual, group and company performance pay job schemes are more satisfied on their job than workers who are paid by the fixed amount. The later result remains even after we have controlled for the difference in earnings, personal and job characteristics.

The present thesis studies the diffusion of energy efficiency (EE from now on) in the residential sector using an economic perspective. The research is concentrated on the analysis of the Energy Efficiency Paradox and on the evaluation of EE policies. The thesis consists of five independent chapters (including this chapter), some of which have been already published in specialized journals. Although increasing EE in the residential sector has been for long time one of the targets of many governments, several reasons have led governments to intensify their efforts in this area. The negative effects generated by climate change, urban pollution and fuel poverty, together with the growing political instability in energy-producer countries, are some of the reasons that are behind this renewed interest both in developed and developing countries. Moreover, engineering studies have identified the residential sector as the one with the largest potential for cost-effective energy-savings. Despite the fact that mathematical models have identified "win-win" situations for households if they adopt EE measures, and the large number of public initiatives to promote EE applied by public institutions, the diffusion rate of EE continues to be lower than expected. Thus, this field of research has gained much attention, not only from policymakers but also from the society and academics. Despite the fact that engineering models have identified "win-win" situations for households if they adopt EE measures, and the large number of public initiatives to promote EE applied by public institutions, the diffusion rate of EE continues to be lower than expected. Thus, this field of research has gained much attention, not only from policymakers but also from academics and other stakeholders. Up to now, most of the interventions were oriented to internalize the negative externalities of energy through the use of price instruments (e.g. through Pigouvian taxes) or codes and standards that ensure a minimum level of energy performance. However, the empirical evidence has shown important limitations associated with such policies. They could be partly given by the general assumptions about perfect information and rationality that these models use. Indeed, much attention has been recently given to the ideas of behavioral economics, which has identified several situations when consumers systematically deviate from the rationality assumptions. The inclusion of behavioral economics approaches in the field of EE has opened the door to new interpretations of the Energy Efficiency Paradox but also to non-price interventions as an important complement to promote EE. Additionally, the development of experimental techniques has allowed researchers to evaluate the effectiveness of non-conventional public interventions. Therefore, the present thesis has the double objective of understanding household decisions regarding EE and of evaluating novel instruments to promote EE. On the one hand, with this research I tried to contribute by providing new academic evidence on the factors driving consumers' choices. This first step is essential to explain the divergence between the level of investment in EE predicted by engineering models and the real level of EE (previously mentioned as the Energy Efficiency Paradox). Besides that, given that EE in the transport sector presents several parallels with dwellings, this thesis also analyses consumer's decisions related with vehicles' energy efficiency. By doing so, I verify whether the results can be applied to other fields of consumer decision related with EE. On the other hand, my research tries to evaluate the results of informational instruments, in particular energy performance certificates or labeling systems, now a widely-used tool to promote EE that has experienced a rapid diffusion in the last few decades. In this sense, Chapter 2 can be seen as an introduction to this thesis. The objective of this chapter was to acquire the necessary knowledge that provided me with a complete overview of the field of EE. This task consisted of the revision of a large number of studies and reports from different research lines: energy demand, fuel poverty, behavioral economics, electricity markets, environmental economics, etc. Furthermore, this chapter works as an introduction and serves as a guideline for the rest of the doctoral thesis. Firstly, it contextualizes the research on EE in the residential sector from an economic point of view. It updates the current debate about the Energy Efficiency Paradox with special attention to the growing role that informational and behavioral failures play in explaining this gap. Secondly, the core of the chapter is a review of the empirical evidence on the effectiveness of the informational instruments that have been rapidly adopted by many governments during the last decade. In particular, the chapter focuses on energy certificates, feedback programs, and energy audits. As far as I know, this is the first study that gathers together the results from economic research in all the existing informational instruments. Results show that energy certificates and feedback programs can be effective, but only if they are carefully designed: yet energy audits seem to have little effect on efficiency. In addition, the chapter points out the large potential for new instruments as well as for combinations of existing ones. Finally, it identifies the experimental techniques implemented in the last few years, highlighting the robust approach that use large and random samples and have a large potential in for future policy evaluation in this field. Chapter 3 empirically evaluates the determinants that drive household decisions regarding EE adoption in Spain. The objective of this chapter is to get insights into EE in Spanish households. Several studies have previously evaluated the factors that determine households' choices. However, Spain presents some specific characteristics that demand for ad hoc analysis: an aged population, a remarkable increase of purchasing power, ownership status or the size and composition of the stock of buildings, among others. Using information from a large and representative official survey, in this chapter I focused on the effects of socio-economic characteristics on the probability to adopt EE measures or energy-saving daily habits. By doing so I was able to identify the barriers that prevent consumers from taking EE measures, and the characteristics that make them favorable to invest. Since EE measures can show different up-front costs, I used information on well-differentiated measures: from energy-saving habits, such as lowering indoor heating temperatures, to low cost measures, such as low consumption bulbs, and higher cost measures, such as energy efficient appliances or double glazing. When dealing with the Energy Efficiency Paradox, there is a general concern with the heterogeneity present among households. In this chapter, I focused on the effects of household environmental attitudes and behavior as a potential explanation for differences in the rate of EE adoption. The chapter shows that households with eco-friendly behaviors are more likely to investment in well-differentiated EE measures as well as to steer daily habits towards energy savings. However, no effects were found for households with environmental attitudes based on stated willingness to pay to protect the environment. In addition to this, households belonging to higher income groups and education levels are more likely to invest in EE but not to adopt energy-saving habits; while households with older members are less likely to invest in EE and show fewer eco-friendly habits. In sum, this chapter provides the first empirical results for Spain on the factors driving household choices regarding EE. Moreover, it contributes to the existing literature by giving insights on pro-environmental attitudes and behaviors. One of the justifications for the use of command-and-control policies is the hypothesis that consumers do not value EE. Hence, the objective of Chapters 4 and 5 was to study consumers' willingness to pay for EE and their valuation for EE labels or certificates in dwellings and light duty vehicles, respectively. This is particularly relevant because EU legislation has introduced the mandate to apply labeling systems to differentiate products based on their level of EE. The objective of those regulations is to help consumers to take efficiency decisions in a market with imperfect information. In Chapter 4 I estimate the implicit price of EE vehicles, measured as those with label A or B. I have used two samples, one with all vehicles on sale in Spain containing official information on attributes and commercial prices of vehicles, and another where a subsample of these vehicles was selected and matched with the price of retailers. For this subsample, the method of "mystery shopping" was carried out by a specialized company. This approach consists in asking directly the retailer about the price of certain vehicles as if this process was part of a real acquisition. A main objective of the chapter was to test the hypothesis of changes in willingness to pay for EE using official prices and retailer prices. Additionally, I used the European labelling system for light vehicles, which classifies automobiles according to their relative fuel consumption levels, as a novel and alternative indicator for EE. The results of this chapter indicate that vehicles labelled A and B are sold at prices 3 to 5.9% higher than those with similar characteristics but lower energy-efficiency labels, using official commercial prices and retailer prices, respectively. By comparing this results with the present value of the energy savings, it can be seen that the use of retailer prices overestimates the value of EE. Although, there is sizeable research on this field, as far as I know this is the first evidence for the Spanish car market. Furthermore, our results fall in the range of magnitudes previously found. Finally, in Chapter 5 I estimate the implicit price of Portuguese dwellings rated as A, B, or C, keeping constant the rest dwelling attributes. Given the lack of official and complete databases for the stock of buildings, I have downloaded the information on dwelling sales from the web page of one of the largest real estate companies in Portugal, and constructed a unique database with complete information of dwelling attributes. This database includes general dwelling attributes but also information on the level of EE of the dwelling and its energy performance certificate. Moreover, since location is one of the most important factors when purchasing a dwelling, I have used spatial economic techniques to control for the exact location of each housing unit. The results show that Portuguese consumers positively value high certified dwellings. Despite the fact that the database used for this study includes information on a larger number of dwelling attributes than in previous studies, reported values are higher. This suggests that the valuation for energy performance certificates is higher in the Portuguese residential sector than that in other European countries. Yet, it can also be the case that our model cannot control for unobservable factors related with energy performance certificates, and this overestimates the results. Indeed, as other researchers have pointed out, there could be effects such as reputation or status that models cannot control. Thus, the chapter highlights the need for further research in this area even though there is an unfortunate lack of official information.

The purpose of this paper is to illuminate the ill effects of neoliberal ideology on labor and education in the United States since the defeat of Keynesian economics in the United by the 1980s (Aronwitz, 2001; Robertson, 2007; Winfield, 2012). That is, neoliberal policy bears significant responsibility in the decline of labor and public schooling in the United States. Concurrently, over the past few decades there has been a significant transfer of wealth from poor and middle-class Americans to the very top of the income distribution (Piketty, 2014). While the wealthiest Americans have benefited from much lower taxes on their wealth in the past few decades, there has been a concurrent hollowing of the middle class due largely to automation and less to offshoring (Autor, 2010). Moreover, Congress and state legislatures have reduced appropriations to K-12 and higher education considerably (Leachman & Mai, 2014; Giroux, 2014; Mitchell, Palacios, & Leachman, 2014). Yet at the same time, some of the more affluent Americans have supported the privatization of K-12 (Ravitch, 2010; 2014), a lucrative investment maneuver (Levine & Levine, 2014). Interestingly, these initiatives siphon dwindling funds away from struggling public education (Levine & Levine, 2014; Ravitch, 2014). Thus, it appears the elite are akin to parasites, extracting sustenance from education and labor. That is why this proposal is significant. Furthermore, this paper draws upon a variety of information to include various government and private research reports on labor and education funding. It also draws from theoretical work in economics and education. Also, it should be noted this work is filtered through the lens of Critical Theory. References Abel, J. R., Deitz, R., & Su, Y. (2014). Are recent college graduates finding good jobs?Current Issues in Economics and Finance, 20(1), pp. 1-8. Retrieved from www.newyorkfed.org/research/publication_annuals/index.html Alexander, M. 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Con una población de 165 millones, una superficie de casi un millón de km2. y una significativa riqueza en hidrocarburos que la convierten en la primera economía regional, Nigeria lo tiene todo para convertirse en un proyecto de potencia a nivel incluso extra africano. No obstante, su pasado y su presente son excelentes ejemplos de cómo las fronteras religiosas y tribales –con diferencias alentadas por el interés económico extranjero- pueden truncar el desarrollo y futuro de un país. Esta es una breve y dolorosa reseña de dicha situación.1. Fronteras reales; fronteras impuestasA mediados del siglo XIX -(habiendo arribado las potencias occidentales a lugares tan lejanos y/u otrora inhóspitos como podrían ser las potencias asiáticas o las tan postergadas Nueva Zelanda y Australia)- el mundo del África subsahariana era aún un gran espacio desconocido a no ser por contactos comerciales puntuales, muchas veces relacionadas con el tráfico de esclavos a América. Son estas relaciones económicas vinculadas al esclavismo las que debemos apuntar en un primer momento, pues hubo, gracias a ellas, un cierto avance magrebí-bereber hacia el sur del Sahara, generando "puentes" sobre el gran desierto y consolidando una multiplicidad de reinos, asentamientos o comunidades de religión musulmana que si bien trascendieron el Sahara, ellas mismas nunca lograron sobrepasar nítidamente la cuenca del alto Níger. Y es que la consolidación de estos "estados" -(de alguna manera hay que llamarlos)- fue un proceso, por lo menos, trunco. Desde el sur, es decir, desde el golfo de Guinea y sus ríos, los europeos comenzaron a avanzar, principalmente los británicos desde la desembocadura del Níger. La cuestión para Albión, en un principio, era alimentar el comercio esclavista (generalmente con su socio portugués) ofrecido por los musulmanes, pero no mucho más. Sin embargo rápidamente el último impulso del "Descubrimiento" -(Stanley y Livingston son, en su epopeya, casi la versión literaria del proceso)- no permitiría más supervivencia de "Terra Incognita" algunay de "vacío espacial del poder" disponible. Muy pronto exploradores, científicos, comerciantes de otros rubros, pastores cristianos y de varios credos, comenzaron su propia –(y autónoma)- conquista del África Occidental. Como siempre ocurre en estas cuestiones que se parecen al Far West, fue un movimiento que prácticamente arrasó con todo aquello que no estuviese mínimamente capacitado para adecuarse a la explosión de la colonización.2. Geopolítica de escritorioBerlín, 1884. Ante la posibilidad de que el avance desorganizado de las potencias coloniales llevara a dramas mayores -(las escaramuzas entre distintas Compañías de colonización y Misiones religiosas, entre otras, ya eran comunes), las mismas se vieron reunidas, quizás no con particular entusiasmo, bajo la égida del Canciller Alemán Otto von Bismarck. A nadie habrá de sorprender que la intención de este destacado personaje era dividir al África cual si fuera un, a la vez, apetitoso y sencillo pastel. Sobra decir que el principio rector que se utilizó para delinear las fronteras del postre en cuestión no fue, en lo absoluto, el respeto de las culturas o de los espacios de los pueblos pre existentes. Es más, hubiese sido de una ingenuidad patética imaginar un Otto von Bismarck "politically correct". Los criterios no podían ser otros que una mezcla de capacidades de control territorial, parcial o total, acompañados sobre todo de la preocupación de no permitir el reforzamiento de las presencias de Francia o el Reino Unido, ya "demasiado presentes" en los alrededores. La originalidad consistió en invitar al balbuceante monarca belga al reparto para que cohonestase la irrupción de un neo-imperio colonial alemán cuya inexistencia envenenaba la vida de von Bismarck desde décadas atrás.Es de estas fronteras, válidas para el Derecho Internacional o para la economía, más allá de lo opinable de su modo de definición, pero arbitrarias y poco razonables a nivel de los nuevos súbditos, de donde nace, básicamente, la confusa problemática en la que, hoy en día, se encuentra el Estado nigeriano.La tragedia de las falsas fronteras en la futura Nigeriase vio claramente desde el momento que se le reconociera la soberanía de parte de dicho territorio (es decir, la cuenca del delta y del Bajo Níger) a los británicos. Éstos, que presionaron por ello, en realidad tardarían varios años en unificar lo que se les había dado en Berlín. Como era evidente, el problema estalló en cuanto hubo efectivo "contacto" con el Norte. Allí, el motor del tráfico esclavista, que había permitido subsistir con estrechez a los mencionados pseudo-estados musulmanes, estaba llegando a su fin. Condenado, casi urbi y orbi, el tráfico de esclavo se redujo estrictamente a escala regional y local, particularmente cuando el Reino Unido, en un sobresalto ético que llegó con trescientos años de atraso, lo condenó irremediablemente. Para colmo de males, este edificante final de la esclavitud dejó a aquellas entidades políticas, musulmanas de credo, pero británicas y portuguesas de vocación, sin su mayor fuente de ingresos. Londres optó por tratar a la Nigeria Septentrional como "una entidad a parte" durante largo tiempo y, para evitar conflictos mayores, otorgó una relativa autonomía a sus líderes religiosos del norte. Como contracara, el Sur, y especialmente el puerto de Lagos, recibió un trato más acorde a las prácticas coloniales de entonces, pasando del estatuto de simples "concesiones" a la Royal Niger Company, a la creación y establecimiento de dos verdaderos Protectorados (incluyendo el de Oriente) que fueron dominados políticamente por los europeos con la colaboración de una elite local, razonablemente occidentalizada. Después de la Gran Guerra se agregará otro Protectorado creado en base al ex Camerún alemán.3. Independencia y primeros problemas: la guerra de BiafraLas necesidades de una organización mínimamente descentralizada -(una federación por ejemplo)- fueron entendidas también por los nigerianos, y podemos decir que el independentismo tuvo dos vertientes: una austral, de elites económicas europeizadas y cristianas; y otra septentrional, ancestral y de raigambre musulmana. Es significativo, -(por no decir casi inconcebible)-entonces, que el país se haya independizado (1960-1963) como un solo Estado y no en dos, tres o más, aunque prevaleciera un modelo político federal y descentralizado que, en teoría, pudiera lidiar con las contradicciones regionales.Evidentemente esto no fue posible, y tras un golpe de Estado fallido por parte de la etnia de los Igbo, éstos comenzaron a ser masacrados principalmente en el Norte como represalia, forzando su repliegue a la región sureste de Biafra . De este desatino se intentó pasar a la declaración de una independencia basada en perspectivas petroleras y alentada por bizarras alianzas casi "contra-natura" (Londres y Moscú del lado unionista; París y Lisboa con el sector separatista). Tras una guerra violentísima (como lo serían tantas otras en el continente) y la perversa contradicción de una brutal hambruna de dimensiones inenarrables en una zona tan rica, se llegaría finalmente a un armisticio en 1970. Las heridas creadas, no obstante, no cicatrizarían.4. Más petróleo, más problemas: la guerra del Delta del NígerA la par del progresivo desarrollo de la extracción y refinamiento del petróleo (actividades realizadas básicamente por multinacionales como Shell o Chevron), la región del Delta del Níger (250 mil km2), en lugar de enriquecerse, presenció la destrucción de sus actividades económicas agrarias y pesqueras tradicionales de subsistencia.A pesar de la descentralización del Estado nigeriano, la Constitución aprobada en 1979 daba al gobierno central la capacidad de expropiar todo territorio rico en hidrocarburos: riqueza generada que, eventualmente, no regresaría a los pueblos que allí habitaban. El petróleo actuó como un elemento empobrecedor en la zona, mientras los dividendos de semejante actividad se dividían entre el gobierno federal y empresas extranjeras. Para hacernos una idea, según Amnistía Internacional, "El sector del gas y el petróleo representa el 97 por ciento de los ingresos de divisas de Nigeria y constituye el 79,5 por ciento de los ingresos del Estado". Los planes de desarrollo prometidos a los residentes del Delta jamás dieron resultado y la etnia local de los Ogoni fue la primera en luchar por esto, de forma pacífica primero y como levantamiento armado tras un significativo movimiento represivo desde el gobierno central a mediados de los 90s. Pronto los Ijaw, otra etnia local, se unirían al levantamiento armado, provocando la huida de cientos de trabajadores "no esenciales" de la Shell y dando impulso a un nuevo movimiento secesionista.5. La insurgencia islámicaComo hemos señalado, el norte nigeriano ha gozado desde tiempos de la colonia de una autonomía significativa, fruto de su pasado proto-estatal con una fuerte presencia islámica y principalmente suní. Esto ha tenido consecuencias importantes hasta nuestros días, cuando la Sharia se impone como principal fuente de Derecho en doce estados de la federación. El Islam es principalmente seguido por la etnia Hausa, si bien parte de los Yoruba también lo practica, constituyendo un 50% de la población total del país. La conflictividad resultante, por lo tanto, no descansa ya sobre viejos conflictos tribales o locales, sino que se trata de enfrentamientos esencialmente religiosos, principalmente derivados de la progresiva expansión del Islam en los estados del norte y en la radicalización de su población ante dicho proceso.Disturbios y masacres comenzaron a reiterarse. Lo acaecido en Jos en 2001 es un hito en el enfrentamiento religioso en cuestión. Pero existen múltiples ejemplos: miles de muertos, la destrucción de decenas de mezquitas e iglesias, etc. Otro paso en la escalada de violencia fue la elección en Nigeria de Miss Mundo en 2002.Pululan los conflictos en esta guerra no declarada e incluso tolerada por parte de las autoridades centrales. No obstante, el problema tomaría otra dimensión con la globalización del movimiento muyahidín y la creación del grupo terrorista Boko Haram (2002), que en idioma Hausa podría traducirse con el edificante slogan de "La Educación Occidental es un Pecado".La violencia generada por Boko Haram -de aparentes lazos con Al Qaeda- no es esporádica ni responde a estímulos puntuales, sino que su meta es la creación de un nuevo Estado islámico a través del enfrentamiento directo contra Abuya y los musulmanes moderados. Lejos de haber sido vencido en la década pasada, las actividades terroristas del grupo parecen multiplicarse año tras año, e incluyen ataques terroristas contra iglesias, cristianos, autoridades gubernamentales, extranjeros y clérigos contrarios. El último mes ha sido particularmente virulento y las víctimas fatales superan las quinientas en treinta días.6. Reflexiones finalesEn el proceso descolonizador, presuntamente Nigeria tenía todo el potencial para transformarse en un Estado ejemplo para el África subsahariana. El resultado ha sido precisamente lo contrario y el supuesto régimen federal no ha servido para encapsular las diversidades étnicas y religiosas o las contradicciones de no saber convertir sus riquezas naturales en prosperidad material para su población. La impunidad con la que actúan los muyahidines y el siempre latente conflicto en el Delta del Níger son solo parte de las consecuencias de ello. Tal vez lleguemos a ver algún día a Nigeria como una nueva Sudáfrica en términos de desarrollo humano, pero los presentes acontecimientos hacen ver esa meta como lejana e incluso utópica.Marcos Rodríguez Schiavone es estudiante de la Licenciatura en Estudios InternacionalesFACS-ORT-Uruguay

Studies of entrepreneurship focus on one of three areas: entrepreneurship as an engine to drive national economic growth, CE as an instrument to facilitate corporate performance, and individual EI as the source of entrepreneurial behavior. There has been rapid development and corporate catching-up in emerging economies, such as BRIC, but there are few studies of entrepreneurship in this environment. In the context of China, the largest emerging country in the world, this dissertation addresses the research question: How does entrepreneurship develop in China at the national, corporate, and individual levels? Entrepreneurship has played a significant role in China's rapid growth; Huang (2010) presented evidence for this. However, China's entrepreneurship development cannot be isolated from its transitional environment, which has involved political and economic reforms. To explore entrepreneurship development in the recent economic transition stage, in chapter 2, I first asked: what stage has entrepreneurship in China reached? To answer this question, one must select the transitional pillars that are important in the context of Chinese reform. As explained in Chapter 2, I chose four: GDP per capita to reflect the standard of living and poverty reduction, educational resources to reflect reform in the national institutional system (the heavy investment in higher education), FDI to reflect the open economy, and the unemployment rate to reflect the consequences of reform in state-owned sectors. Before evaluating the impact of these four factors on entrepreneurial activities in China, I discussed the Chinese entrepreneurship environment, beginning at the start of the economic reform at the end of the 1970s. I then showed the evolution of entrepreneurial development, with its lower-case-v shape. GDP per capita increased from 1996 (the year that private entrepreneurship was formally acknowledged) to 2008. This corresponds to China's economic transition: from the factor-driven phase to a transitional stage between the factor-driven and efficiency-driven phases, and then to the efficiency-driven stage. Taking this into account, I focused on the most recent transition stage (the efficiency-driven stage) and analyzed the impact of economic transition (in terms of the four pillars) on entrepreneurship development. The results reveal the positive impact of China's economic transition on entrepreneurship development. Typically, GDP per capita has a significant inverted-U-shaped impact on entrepreneurship, which reflects the government's focus on state sectors and urban infrastructure since 2007 (to reduce the marginal rate of increase in self-employment). Educational resources and economic openness are positively related to entrepreneurship (and have a positive interactive impact economic growth), corresponding to GEM's report (GEM Global Report, 2008), which states that Chinese entrepreneurs are likely to be highly educated. Unemployment has a positive push effect and a negative interactive effect on GDP per capita, demonstrating that China's entrepreneurship had developed (by 2008) into a transitional phase between necessity-based and opportunity-based. Unemployed people are likely to prefer wage employment to self-employment, which is consistent with the efficiency-driven development stage of that time. This study contributes to empirical studies on the relationship between the economic-development stage and entrepreneurship development. It provides another view of entrepreneurship development in a transitional economy. Moreover, this study contributes to the debate on the Beijing consensus versus the Washington consensus. In terms of the former, this study indicates that entrepreneurship development in China is government-led and owes much to the governmental initiation of institutional transition. However, the results suggest that the ex ante dimensions of entrepreneurship development correspond to the requirements of the Washington consensus (at least in terms of economic openness). Hence, I take a middle position in this lively debate: I believe that China's development is driven by both scenarios. At the political level, which I argue is the framework level, China follows the Beijing consensus, because it has long-term political decision-making (by a single political party) and experimentation-based policy development (defined by Deng Xiaoping). At the micro level however, economic development is driven by the Washington consensus. China is trying to build up a formal institutional framework that supports private property rights, economic openness, financial reforms, macroeconomic stability, and political liberalization. There is a contradiction between the political liberalization defined by the Washington consensus and the current situation in China. However, I still argue that, as a result of the government's proactive behavior, quiet progress is being made on every disputed issue (including liberalization). Chapter 2 investigated Chinese entrepreneurship development at the macro level. I explored corporate entrepreneurial development and its impact on corporate catching-up. The catching-up concept originated in the economics field at the national level. The investigation of corporate catching-up, especially for emerging countries, is challenging because there is a theoretical deficit. National catching-up theory indicates that innovation is essential for catching-up and social advance is a necessary precondition for catching-up (Abramovitz, 1986). I assumed that similar arguments would apply to corporate catching-up, and I wanted to explore the underlying mechanism. I used CE theory, resource-based theory, dynamic-capability theory, and network theory to explain my corporate catching-up framework. I tested the framework in chapter 3 with a case study of Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. The results show that social capability helps a firm to acquire social capital, diffuse technology and knowledge, improve its social status, address resource gaps, and explore opportunities. Moreover, the results indicate that catching-up firms are similar to entrepreneurial firms in terms of growth-orientation, innovation, and alertness. CE strategies, particularly collaboration-based networks, facilitate corporate catching-up. Huawei's growth indicates that networking improves social capability and allows a company to exploit and explore new technologies and new opportunities. I also made peripheral findings. For instance, the integration of the three network layers is an overall approach for corporate catching-up. This is because of the structural, relational, and cognitive social capital gained from networks for knowledge acquisition, transfer, sharing, and creation internally and externally. Structurally, a sparse interfirm network with increased network composition and strong ties can coexist with a cohesive intrafirm network. This facilitates external opportunity exploration and internal opportunity exploitation. Moreover, the industrial-district network provides a snapshot of intrafirm and interfirm networks in a particular location. Theoretically, this work supports corporate catching-up theory, enriches social network theory, and provides support for the aggregation of strategic alliances, M&As and corporate venturing in an open-innovation paradigm. This study provides empirical evidence for the process by which people exploit opportunities within existing organizations (Shane, 2012). Practically, this work has many strategic implications for latecomer catching-up firms. Chapters 2 and 3 presented a partial picture of China's entrepreneurship development. Chapter 2 indicated that China's entrepreneurship is moving from necessity-based to opportunity-based, and higher education now plays a role. Chapter 3 showed that corporate catching-up is closely associated with individual EI and behavior. Any entrepreneurial behavior can be traced down to the individual level. Krueger (1993) indicates that intentionality is a predictor of entrepreneurial behavior. Therefore, it is important to understand the determinants of EI endogenously and exogenously. Given the results of chapters 2 and 3 and the observation that the emerging generation of entrepreneurs has more education, I predicted that there would be several influential factors. These are the perceived desirability, the perceived feasibility, and the entrepreneurship cognition developed through education or exposure to entrepreneurial activity. Therefore, chapter 4 aimed to identify the role of education in shaping individual entrepreneurial intention. It indirectly contributes to the discussion about whether entrepreneurs are born or made. I used a conceptual framework (Fig. 4.1) based on Ajzen's TPB and Shapero's EEM. The data were collected via a survey of ten Chinese universities. The results show that education is the major source of entrepreneurship knowledge and has a significant positive impact on EI. However, exposure to entrepreneurial activity has a negative impact on EI in China. More interestingly, the results show that males and students with technological backgrounds have higher EI than females and those without this background. These results are strengthened by the moderate impact of entrepreneurship education, which indicates that such education is more likely to have positive consequences for technological universities and majors than for other universities and majors. This work makes contributions in two areas. (1) By adapting the TPB (Ajzen, 1991) and the EEM (Shapero & Sokol, 1982), this study contributes theoretically by integrating the two streams of theory. I have shown the role of entrepreneurial knowledge in the EI model and compared the impact of different variables on EI. (2) This study contributes to empirical knowledge by providing supporting evidence. Entrepreneurship research should focus (Mitchell et al., 2007) on person, situation, cognition, and motivation. This study provides evidence for the source of individual entrepreneurial cognition in the Chinese context. Shane and Venkataraman (2000) argue that entrepreneurship should be seen as a process and not as the embodiment of a type of person. Following this, I argue that in terms of opportunity identification, evaluation, and exploitation this process is important not only at the individual level but also at the corporate and national levels. Recently, Shane (2012) has claimed that existing studies of entrepreneurship do not provide a sufficient understanding of how the context influences the identification and exploitation of opportunities. However, we do have a better understanding of the process by which people exploit opportunities within existing organizations. I have provided evidence for and insight into this topic in the context of emerging and transitional economies. Regarding the process perspective of entrepreneurship (Shane, 2012), the three core chapters of this dissertation loop as a reciprocal process between (1) the EI-formation process, which can be the ex ante step of identifying and exploiting high-potential opportunities (Chapter 4), (2) the process of identifying and exploiting catching-up opportunities in existing organizations (Chapter 3), and (3) the process of understanding the impact of institutions and corporate characteristics on entrepreneurship (Chapter 2). This loop can be explained as follows: first, process (2) cannot work without process (1), because corporate identification and exploration are carried out by individuals. Secondly, process (1) depends on process (2), because process (2) involves actors in process (1). The relationship between process (3) and process (2) is similar, meaning that if process (3) at the national level is entrepreneur-friendly, the development of process (2) is facilitated, and this leads to more efficient entrepreneurial progress. Meanwhile, process (2) helps to drive process (3) at an aggregate level.