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Blinded by Riches: The Prudhoe Bay Effect
Terrence Cole
Alaska has repeatedly been saved by surprise developments or events. Prudhoe Bay oil was by far the largest such development—worth seven times more than all previous Alaska resource value combined. But the enormous value of Prudhoe Bay oil—the “Prudhoe Bay effect”—has blinded Alaskans to the perennial dilemma created by relying on temporary resource revenues. Now, with oil revenues declining, Alaska once again has a budget crisis. But today there’s a crucial difference that can be summed up in two words: Permanent Fund. Figure 1 shows why Prudhoe Bay oil gave Alaska an opportunity unlike any previous development.
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The Economics of University Research
Pamela Cravez and Scott Goldsmith
Alaska ranks near the bottom among the states in the total amount of R&D activity. Most research in Alaska is conducted by the University of Alaska and directly by the federal government, and very little is done by industry. Alaska ranks 47th among the states in total research, 50th in industry research, and 42nd in University research (Table 2). Alaska’s performance is better in per capita terms, but spending on R&D per person is only half the U.S. average. Only federal R&D is above the per capita U.S. average. In terms of the “intensity” of R&D spending (R&D/Gross Product), Alaska is ranked number 41. About 1 percent of Alaska Gross State Product is devoted to R&D spending. The small amount of private industry spending on R&D in Alaska is due to several factors. The first is the absence of manufacturing industry within the state, except for seafood processing. Second is the dominance of the public sector within the economy both in terms of jobs and resource ownership. Third is the absence of Alaska based resource businesses large enough to financially support investments in R&D. Finally, Alaska has not been an attractive location for private research facilities due to cost and distance from clients and customers. "
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Program Evaluation: Rose Urban Rural Teacher Training 2004
Rosyland Frazier, G. Williamson McDiarmid, and Alexandra Hill
Teacher Training, together with the Student Exchange and the Sister School Exchange, make up the Rose Urban Rural Exchange. That broad program is funded by the U.S. Department of Education and administered by the Alaska Humanities Forum. It is intended to build mutual understanding and a statewide sense of community by bringing urban students and teachers to rural Alaska-and rural students and teachers to urban Alaska-to learn about each other's cultures. Under the Teacher Training program, teachers from middle schools and high schools in urban areas participate in cultural camps sponsored by rural communities and Alaska Native organizations. These camps, many of which have been operating for more than a decade, introduce Native young people and adults to their traditions, histories, and cultures. Allowing urban teachers to share this experience is intended to help them develop a greater understanding of and respect for Alaska Native cultures and rural life.
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Executive Summary: The Status of Alaska Natives Report 2004
Oliver Scott Goldsmith, Lance Rowe, Linda Leask, Jane Angvik, and Alexandra Hill
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Economic Projections for Alaska and the Southern Railbelt to 2030
Scott Goldsmith
For the foreseeable future, the Alaska export base will continue to be dominated by commodity-producing industries combined with tourism, national defense, and the movement of international freight. Relatively high labor costs, sparse and expensive infrastructure, small market size, and distance from markets will continue to act as barriers to the development of significant processing as well as manufacturing and services for export. Petroleum, mining, tourism, and international freight hold the most potential for employment growth. Growth of the timber and seafood industries may result from more intensive exploitation of the resource base, together with the expansion of value-added processing.
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2004 Alaska Construction Spending Forecast
Scott Goldsmith and Mary Killorin
We estimate total construction spending in Alaska in 2004 will be $5.315 billion, about the same as last year. Private spending will be $3.250 billion, or 61 percent of the total. Public spending will contribute $2.065 billion, or 39 percent.
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Economic Development Performance Indicators: 3 Briefing Papers
Lance Howe, Linda Leask, and Stephanie Martin
Recent federal legislation established an economic development committee and 12 regional advisory committees with the Denali Commission. To measure the success of the programs established under these committees, performance indicators and measures are required. This report reviews and inventories exisiting performance measure for rural Alaska as the foundation of a study for new measures.
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An Alaskan Law School: Is it feasible?
Mary Killorin
Responding to a request from the University of Alaska Anchorage (UAA) alumni, the UAA provost asked the Institute of Social and Economic Research (ISER) to investigate the need for a law school in Alaska. Alaska is the only state that does not have a law school. The question of whether to establish a law school in Alaska has been discussed for more than thirty years. In 1974, the University of Alaska, in conjunction with the Alaska Legislative Council, commissioned a feasibility study for an Alaska law school.In May 1975, John Havelock, then director of Legal Studies at the University of Alaska, issued a report, Legal Education for A Frontier Society: A Survey of Alaskan Needs and Opportunities in Education, Research and the Delivery of Legal Services. The report is 240 pages and is very broad in scope. In this study, almost thirty years later, we revisited the question of the feasibility of establishing a law school in Alaska and came to the same conclusions. There is still no need to increase the supply of lawyers by establishing a law school in Alaska. The state can meet the legal education needs of its residents by increasing its financial support for students who go outside to law school and by establishing cooperative programs with existing ABA accredited law schools.
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Modeling Sustainability of Arctic Communities: An Interdisciplinary Collaboration of Researchers and Local Knowledge Holders
Jack Kruse
How will climate change affect the sustainability of Arctic villages over the next 40 years? This question motivated a collaboration of 23 researchers and four Arctic communities (Old Crow, Yukon Territory, Canada; Aklavik, Northwest Territories, Canada; Fort McPherson, Northwest Territories, Canada; and Arctic Village, Alaska USA) in or near the range of the Porcupine Caribou Herd. We drew on existing research and local knowledge to examine potential effects of climate change, petroleum development, tourism, and government spending cutbacks on the sustainability of four Arctic villages. We used data across eight disciplines to develop an Arctic Community Synthesis Model and Web-based, interactive Possible Futures Model. Results suggested that climate warming will increase vegetation biomass within the herd's summer range. However, despite forage increasing, the herd was projected as likely to decline with a warming climate because of increased insect harassment in the summer and potentially greater winter snow depths. There was a strong negative correlation between hypothetical, development-induced displacement of cows and calves from utilized calving grounds and calf survival during June. The results suggested that climate warming coupled with petroleum development would cause a decline in caribou harvest by local communities. Because the synthesis Model inherits uncertainties associated with each component model, sensitivity analysis is required. Scientists and stakeholders agreed that (1) although simulation models are incomplete abstractions of the real world, they helped bring scientific and community knowledge together, and (2) relationships established across disciplines and between scientists and communities were a valuable outcome of this study.
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Kids Count Alaska 2004
Claudia Lampman and Virgene Hanna
This year we look at adoption. Nearly 4% of children in Alaska are adopted, according to the 2000 U.S. census - the biggest share in any state. We also show the personal face of adoption. Other information contained in this issue include statistics on infancy, economic well-being, education, children in danger and juvenile justice.
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The Status of Alaska Natives Report 2004 Volumes I - III
Linda Leask, David Marshall, Scott Goldsmith, Alexandra Hill, Jane Angvik, Lance Howe, and Brian L. Saylor
The Alaska Federation of Natives asked ISER to report on social and economic conditions among Alaska Natives. We found that Natives have more jobs, higher incomes, and better living conditions, health care, and education than ever. But they remain several times more likely than other Alaskans to be poor and out of work. Alcohol continues to fuel widespread social problems. Native students continue to do poorly on standard tests, and they’re dropping out in growing numbers. Rates of heart disease and diabetes are rising. In the face of all these challenges, subsistence remains critical for cultural and economic reasons. And there are more challenges to come. In the coming decade, when economic growth is likely to be slower than in the past, thousands more young Alaska Natives will be moving into the job market. Volume II and Volume III of the Status of Alaska Natives Report contain data tables generated from the 2000 U.S. census describing the Alaska Native American population by the 12 Alaska Native Regional Corporation boundaries. Volume II shows data for the population in Alaska reporting Native American as their only race (Alaska Native or American Indian Alone) and Volume III shows data for the population reporting Native American in combination with some other race (Alaska Native or American Indian Alone or in Combination). At the time of the 2000 Census, there were 98,043 single-race Native Americans in Alaska and 119,241 people who identified themselves as Native American in combination with some other race. The tables in these volumes have been generated from a special file prepared by the U.S. Census Bureau that contains detailed information on the Native American population for the entire United States. The AIANSF (American Indian and Alaska Native Summary File) is accessible on the internet at http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/DatasetMainPageServlet"
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2004 Evaluation, Sister School Exchange Rose Urban Rural Program
G. Williamson McDiarmid and Rosyland Frazier
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Student Exchange Rose Urban Rural Exchange Program Evaluation 2004
G. Williamson McDiarmid and Rosyland Frazier
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Teacher Training Rose Urban Exchange Program Evaluation 2003 Addendum
G. Williamson McDiarmid and Rosyland Frazier
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Longitudinal Study of First-Year Students Rose Urban Rural Exchange Program
Williamson McDiarmid and Rosyland Frazier
The Institute of Social and Economic Research (ISER) at the University of Alaska Anchorage annually evaluates components of the Rose Urban Rural Exchange Program, to determine how well the program is achieving its purpose. The program's goal is to build understanding and a statewide sense of community-by bringing urban students to rural Alaska and rural students to urban Alaska, to help them learn about each other's cultures....In 2004, the Institute of Social and Economic (ISER) proposed, for the first time, to evaluate not only how the program did in the current year, but also to evaluate the program's lasting effects by collecting survey and interview data from students who had participated in the first year of the program, 2001....This report describes the background and research design. We will discuss the issue of lasting program efficacy in a later report. This report has four chapters. Following this brief introductory chapter, Chapter 2 describes the scope of the longitudinal evaluation. Chapter 3 provides information about the evaluation design, including development of the data collection instruments. Chapter 4 presents our preliminary findings about some of the data we have collected to this point. The appendixes include the interview protocol, pre- and post-visit questionnaires, and the urban and rural tests of knowledge.
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A Summary of Alaskool Web Site Survey Results: What's Useful and What Can Be Improved?
Suzanne Sharp and Katie Eberhart
"This report summarizes the results of a survey the Institute of Social and Economic Research (ISER) and First Alaskans Institute (FAI) developed to determine how useful the Alaskool Web site- www.alaskool.org-is and how it might be improved. To understand the survey results, it's helpful to know the background of the Alaskool Web site. The Alaskool Web site is the product of the Alaska Native Curriculum and Teacher Development Project, designed in the late 1990s by Paul Ongtooguk and John Pingayak-two Native educators - and Bill McDiarmid, who at that time was the director of ISER. They saw that resources teachers and others needed for Alaska Native education were very scarce, and they proposed to fill the need by creating an online collection of materials on Alaska Native history, culture, and languages, as well as curricula and other products teachers and students could use. Such a collection, on a Web site, would not only bring together in one place a wide array of materials, but would also make them instantly accessible to residents of remote rural communities.
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A Review of Alaska School District Cost Study
Bradford Tuck
The Alaska Legislature’s Legislative Budget and Audit Committee asked the Institute of Social and Economic Research (ISER) at the University of Alaska Anchorage to review the Alaska School District Cost Study. The American Institutes for Research (AIR) prepared that study for the legislative committee. The study was to provide a “geographic cost of education index” that the state could use to help equalize the purchasing power of educational dollars it allocates to school districts across Alaska. Costs of living can vary substantially in different areas of Alaska. The study, in two volumes plus supplemental materials, was released in January 2003 and supplemented in February 2003. Also, in a response dated April 11, 2003, AIR answered a number of questions that had been raised about the study.
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Economic Significance of the Alaska Railroad
Bradford Tuck and Mary Killorin
This report estimates the economic effects of Alaska Railroad spending in Alaska, for both operations and capital projects. The Alaska Railroad is a major part of the transportation network in Alaska and also between Alaska and the Lower 48. It connects with rail service from the rest of the U. S. and Canada via its port facilities in Whittier and ships coal and naphtha to Asia via the port of Seward. The railroad carries both passengers and freight, but it is freight that accounts for most of the railroad’s operating revenue. It carries large volumes of a variety of freight. In recent years, petroleum products the railroad hauls from the North Pole refinery to the Anchorage area have made up much of its freight volume. For many years it carried several hundred thousand tons of coal per year between Healy and Seward, for export to Korea, and it continues to haul coal from Healy to Fairbanks. It also hauls a significant portion of the gravel used in the Anchorage bowl from the Mat-Su Valley. The railroad is able to carry these large volumes of freight more efficiently and at lower cost than trucks—and so it facilitates current economic activity and can help make future developments feasible. Our estimates of the economic effects of railroad spending in Alaska are based on annual average spending of $108 million from 2001 through 2003. If railroad spending increased, it would support more jobs and income; if spending dropped, it would cost the state jobs and income.
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United or Divided Twins? The Political Economy of Beringia
Arlon R. Tussing and John Tichotsky
When the US purchased Alaska from the Russians in1867 it quickly stepped into Russia's role in the colonial relationship. The US exploited salmon as the primary base resource from about 1878. Gold was discovered in lode deposits in the 1880s in the southeast of Alaska (Juneau and Treadwell), about the same time as the Lena goldfields of Irkutsk began to step up operations. We anticipate that Alaska contains or has demonstrated most of the elements that we can expect to see in the foreseeable development of other post-Soviet Arctic regions, including Alaska's nearest neighbor Chukotka, one of Russia's poorest and least modernized regions. This article was written for the 'Beringia' issue of the Northern Expanses journal which was a joint effort of the US National Park Service as part of the International Decade of Indigenous People.
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