The British Airways Heritage Collection: an ethnographic ‘history’

This article develops an ethnographic account of the development and history of the British Airways Heritage Centre (BAHC). Responding to several observations throughout the literature, we report on our experiences of engagement with British Airways’ archives over a 25-year period. In doing so our focus is on the much-neglected history of archives as powerful influences on how corporate histories are written. The ethnographic account is rooted in ANTi-History, an approach to historiography, that focuses on the production of history as knowledge of the past by following a number of human (e.g. archive volunteers) and non-human (e.g. airline artefacts) actors to reassemble the elements that constitute an archive at a point in time. To that end, we trace the inter-relationships between histories of British Airways and the development of the BAHC. We conclude that a focus on the various human and non-human relationships that constitute an archive can help the researcher to identify the hidden influences on the production of history that can otherwise serve to enrol him or her.     

Has the United States Overinvested in Housing?

Several economists have concluded that housing investment has been excessive relative to industrial investment in the U.S. Most blame provisions of the federal income tax that favor owner-occupied housing.
This paper poses the question within a two-sector neoclassical growth model which permits the social return to housing to differ from that to non-housing. The model is estimated using national income accounts and capital stock data from 1929 to 1983. The conclusion is that the return to housing capital is about half that to non-housing capital and that the housing stock should be about 75% of its 1983 volume.     

A pilot study to assess rural water supplies and sanitation conditions on the Pongolo floodplain — A social anthropological perspective

This paper, based on a pilot study, is part of an ongoing research project on rural water supplies in Southern Africa. Research of this nature aims at bridging the gap between some critical sociological approaches which ignore social practice, and biomedical research which is at times inclined to focus, for instance, on particular diseases without locating the diseases within the political economy of Southern Africa. Macro‐scale sociological explanations of poverty and the diseases associated with lack of development need to be meshed with micro‐scale research at village level in order to obtain a realistic perspective of rural life which can inform social practice. The relationship between preventative medicine and development is emphasized.     

Indivisibilities and development timing the shopping-center problem

The subject of this paper is the timing and efficiency of development decisions in urban or regional markets for establishments like shopping centers, hotels, and commercial office buildings where indivisibilities are important. It presents a model of the land development process that incorporates indivisibilities. A non-optimality theorem is proved to confirm that market-controlled development timing is not optimal, and that sometimes the market undersupplies indivisible establishments once a terminal state is reached. Further, during the period of development the market may oversupply establishments for intervals of time. In contrast to static analysis, indivisibilities do not allow developers to earn positive profits. These are competed away by foresighted, sequential development timing.     

Ex-ante agricultural research evaluation with site specific technology generation: the case of sorghum in Kenya

Agricultural commodity research has very site-specific productivity impacts. Crucial determinants of the magnitude and distribution of research benefits include agroecological conditions for technology generation and adoption, as well as commodity market-structure. This paper presents a process for ex-ante research evaluation which accounts for these factors with a dynamic, spatial multi-market model. Simulation results based on sorghum research in Kenya demonstrate that potential research benefits can vary dramatically research program research target zones. In Kenya, however, population-induced demand growth not technological development will have the greatest influence on future sorghum markets.