Space Traders: Reregulation,Property Companies and Auckland's Office Market, 1975–94

The global property boom of the 1980s and its aftermath has prompted considerable debate among academics. For the most part research has been directed toward the global cities of London, New York and Tokyo. Notwithstanding the significance of property processes within these global cities, metropolitan areas outside of the core financial centres have also experienced major transformations in their property markets. This paper examines the character of Auckland's speculative office property boom of the 1980s which resulted in a level of output comparable to global cities such as Paris and Frankfurt. We argue that the wholesale reregulation of the New Zealand economy in the 1980s, and in particular the liberalization of financial markets and the share market, provided a context in which the structure of agents associated with the provision of office space was radically altered. The rise of property companies, and their dominance of the development process throughout the boom and subsequent crash, is detailed. Whilst Auckland's property boom conforms to the global experience, we argue that the specific character and intensity of the development process in Auckland highlights the need to appreciate the ‘particularity of place’.     

Class Formation and Localism in an Emerging Bureaucracy: British Bank Workers, 1880–1960

This article uses a case study of the spatial and career mobility of bank workers from Lloyds, a leading British bank, to explore the relationship between class formation and spatial mobility. The article argues against the idea that the large‐scale concentration and bureaucratization of the British banking industry in the early years of the twentieth century saw the emergence of a mobile middle‐class spiralist or cosmopolitan. We use archival data from Lloyds Bank to argue that the emergence of Lloyds as a large‐scale national bank involved a compromise with localized interests rather than a detachment of the bank from local concerns. We use data on the career histories of a representative sample of male bank employees to argue that spatial mobility was organized largely within regions and helped to consolidate the prospects of rural bank workers. We argue that London emerged as a distinctive ‘hub’ for banking careers, with significant amounts of movement to and from London from all regions. We therefore demonstrate how localized and rural cultures were sedimented within a large, national bureaucracy, and that a genuine ‘spiralist’ structure did not emerge. En s’appuyant sur une étude de cas relative à la mobilité géographique et professionnelle du personnel de la Lloyds, l’une des premières banques britanniques, cet article examine le lien entre la formation d’une classe et la mobilité spatiale. Il combat l’idée que la concentration et la bureaucratisation à grande échelle du secteur bancaire britannique au début du XXe siècle a fait na? tre une classe moyenne mobile en spirale ou cosmopolite. Les données d’archives de la Lloyds révèlent que son développement en tant que grande banque nationale s’est accompagné d’un compromis avec les intér? ts locaux plutôt que d’une indifférence à l’égard de ces préoccupations. Les informations sur les carrières d’un échantillon représentatif d’employés de banque masculins permettent d’établir que la mobilité géographique a été organisée largement au plan régional, contribuant à consolider les perspectives des employés en zone rurale. Londres est apparu comme un ‘pôle’ particulier dans les carrières bancaires, avec un nombre considérable de mutations vers et de la capitale à partir de toutes les régions. L’article montre ainsi comment des cultures locales et rurales se sont sédimentées au sein d’une importante bureaucratie nationale et qu’aucune structure ‘en spirale’ pure n’en est issue.     

The performance of coal-burning electric generating units in the United States: 1960–1980

This paper studies determinants of the thermal efficiency and reliability of coal-burning electric generating units using a new, comprehensive, unbalanced panel data set. For two major technological groups consistent and efficient estimates are obtained of the effects of unit age, vintage, scale, operating practices, and coal quality. Large utilities integrated into design and engineering appear to obtain superior unit performance. Implications of our results for life-cycle generation costs, regulators' performance norms, and the complex pattern of technological change in this industry are discussed.