Pacific Standard May-June 2013 Cover

Lose All Your Weight, Fly for Free

April 4, 2013 • By • Leave a Comment
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Samoa Air—which is sadly not an airplane made out of Girl Scout cookies and which is an airline with mini planes that appear to come pre-packaged in a box that you can order on Amazon—is beginning to charge its customers based on how much they weigh. As in, however many kilograms you bring on the plane—on your body and in your bags—you'll multiply that by whatever set per-kilogram rate the airline is charging at the time. From news.com.au: "People have always traveled on the basis of their seat but as many airline operators know airlines don't run on seats they run on weight and ... Read More

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Air Boomtown

January 14, 2013 • By • Leave a Comment
(PHOTO: RENAE MITCHELL)

At the end of this summer, as I’ve done most summers for the past 25 years, I copiloted a small plane and landed at Sloulin Field International Airport in Williston, North Dakota. Sloulin Field is hunkered not far from the arid, windswept eastern border of Montana, and about 60 miles south of the Canadian border. It’s the first opportunity to clear U.S. customs following my annual family fishing trip to northern Saskatchewan. The previous summer, only the wind and the lilting song of meadowlarks disturbed the little airport’s tranquility. This year, Williston’s tarmac reverberated with ... Read More

More like this: Business & Economics, January-February 2013
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The Caucasian King Of K-Pop

January 10, 2013 • By • Leave a Comment
Brad Moore (center) with his bandmates, Kim Hyung-Tae (left) and Jang Beom-Jun (PHOTO: GETTY IMAGES)

He was exhausted, his makeup itched, and his tight white pants were cutting off the circulation in his legs. Still, Brad Moore smiled and waved from the television-studio stage to the crowd of screaming, clapping Korean teenagers. Mainly, the 28-year-old drummer from Ohio was relieved that his eight weeks on a Korean music reality show were almost over. The fact that his band, Busker Busker, was poised to become a pop sensation didn’t hurt, either. Moore and his bandmates—guitarist and vocalist Jang Beom-Jun and bassist Kim Hyung-Tae, two young Koreans he’d met while teaching English ... Read More

More like this: Culture, January-February 2013
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Can a Test Tell If You’re a Good Entrepreneur?

December 5, 2012 • By • Leave a Comment
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Bankers around the world know there are profits to be reaped by making loans to promising small businesses that fall just short of traditional definitions of “creditworthy.” Ever since Nobel Prize winner Muhammad Yunus’ Grameen Bank pioneered "microfinance" by making tiny loans to single mothers in Bangladesh, development policymakers also have believed that getting credit to small businesses—those too large for Grameen-style microloans but still lacking collateral or credit history—is not only possible, but the key to helping a nation’s economic growth. So how to figure out ... Read More

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Rules That Improve the Business Environment?

January 21, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment

Harvard business professor Michael Porter floated an idea in a one-page essay in Scientific American 20 years ago that many of his colleagues at the time thought ridiculous. Good environmental regulation, he suggested, could actually spur innovation, making companies more competitive even as they adjust to stricter environmental standards. The idea was the exact opposite of conventional wisdom as it was discussed then among business leaders and taught in economics classrooms. Even 20 years later, it seems to contradict the premise that underlies every policy dispute in Washington over ... Read More

More like this: Business & Economics, Politics, The Idea Lobby
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Billion-Dollar Underdogs

August 8, 2010 • By • Leave a Comment

Americans love the underdog whether it’s in sports, in history or political campaigns — and in the brands they buy. That’s right, Samuel Adams beer, Ben and Jerry’s and Google — at least the old Google — all belong right up there with the Alamo, David, and Lance Armstrong … well, the Lance we hoped wasn’t juiced. Neeru Paharia of Harvard University, Anat Keinan of the Harvard Business School, Jill Avery of the Simmons School of Management and Juliet B. Schor of Boston College demonstrate how consumers personally identify with underdog brands. Many Americans idealize ... Read More

More like this: Business & Economics, Culture, Findings, NEWS
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Empathy Conducive to Creativity

February 17, 2010 • By • 5 Comments

Creativity is usually thought of as internally motivated — a response to a deeply felt personal urge to challenge convention, push boundaries and explore. But newly published research suggests that, at least in the business world, the link between inspiration and ingenuity is strengthened by focusing on the needs of others. Writing in the Academy of Management Journal, Adam Grant of the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School and James Berry of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill report “intrinsic motivation is most likely to be associated with higher levels of ... Read More

More like this: CAROUSEL, Culture, Culture & Society, Findings, NEWS
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The Wal-Mart Catechism

February 3, 2010 • By • Leave a Comment

Last November, voters in Ventura, Calif., faced a dilemma common to many midsized communities: What, if anything, can be done about Wal-Mart? There seemed to be no legal way to stop the Arkansas-based behemoth from opening a store in the area, so a coalition of activists and grocery store unions crafted a ballot measure to restrict the size of the store and the types of goods it could sell. Backers argued that the proposal would prevent a Wal-Mart “superstore” from cannibalizing local businesses and undercutting high-wage union jobs at area grocery chains. As the Wal-Mart debate ... Read More

More like this: Business & Economics, CAROUSEL
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What’s In a Label?

January 29, 2010 • By • 4 Comments

You've probably seen a "fair trade coffee" sign in the window of your favorite gourmet coffee shop, but what exactly does fair trade mean — beyond a $4 cup of coffee, that is? Although it doesn't have a universally accepted definition, fair trade is generally understood to be a movement that promotes sustainability in developing countries and tries to pay "fair" prices to the local producers exporting from them — most notably farmers raising coffee, bananas and tea. The reasoning behind this is that small-scale farmers in developing nations cannot compete with industrial farmers, ... Read More

More like this: Business & Economics, CAROUSEL
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This Import Might Preserve American Jobs

December 3, 2009 • By • Leave a Comment

As the U.S. unemployment breaches the 10 percent mark — with manufacturing sector rates even higher — policymakers and industry representatives in the Midwest are seeking strategies to keep the Rust Belt from getting even rustier. In this war for economic survival, groups in cities like Cleveland, Detroit and Chicago, as well as the million-plus-members-strong United Steelworkers Union, have turned to a model borne of another war-torn region: the Mondragón Corporation in the Basque area of Spain. The Mondragón Corporation (MCC) is a multilayered organization with worker-owned ... Read More

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