-
Employment Impacts of Alternative Railbelt Energy Projects
Steve Colt
This report to the House Labor and Commerce Committee of the Alaska State Legislature compares the likely economic impacts of two house bills - HB76/77 and HB 228. The memorandum provides estimates of the employment attributable to the various energy related projects under consideration for development in the area known as the Alaska Railbelt.
-
Financial Performance of Alaska Native Regional Corporations
Steve Colt
This edition of the Alaska Review of Social and Economic Conditions examines one narrow measure of how well Alaska Native Corporations have done in managing nearly 1 billion dollars and 44 million acres for the benefit of their shareholders. It describes the financial performance of the regional corporations from their beginnings in 1973 through 1990. We also report available information on shareholder employment. The endowment of natural resources in each region explains a lot about the relative financial success of the corporations: some regions just have more marketable resources than others. But aside from the differences attributable to random resource distribution, we can make several points about the corporations' cumulative financial performance over this period.
-
Alaska Economic Indicators (Working Paper 91.2)
Oliver Scott Goldsmith, Alexandra Hill, and Teresa Hull
-
Tracking the Structure of the Alaska Economy: The 1991 ISER Map Economic Database (Working Paper 91.3)
Oliver Scott Goldsmith and Teresa Hull
-
Economic Cost of a Rent-Induced Business Cycle: Alaska Petrodollar Boom
Scott Goldsmith
Presented at the annual meeting of the Western Regional Science Association in Monterey, California
-
Alaska Economic Indicators
Scott Goldsmith and Alexandra Hill
Analysis of the economic indicators clearly shows the deceleration of the Alaska economy which has occurred in 1991. The influence of the oil spill cleanup effort is no longer a significant factor in determining the course of the economy, thus allowing the other economic drivers to reassert their influence. This report is made up primarily of tabulated and charted data with a short commentary regarding key economic indicators of employment, income, and 'miscellaneous' items such as building activity.
-
Tracking the Structure of the Alaska Economy: The ISER MAP Database
Scott Goldsmith and Teresa Hull
This document is predominantly tabulated data with no interpretive or contextual information.
-
What Do Alaskan's with Disabilities Need?
Virgene Hanna
More than 20,000 Alaskas - 4 percent of the state population- are disabled and live outside institutions. Most of them of getting medical care, but many lack special equipment, information, and other help they need. These are among the findings of a recent ISER survey of more than 4300 Alaska households. It is the first survey of its kind in the nation to determine how many disabled persons live on their own and what they need to continue living independently.
-
An Assessment of the Needs of Alaska Residents Who Are Disabled
Virgene Hanna and Jack Kruse
Over 20,000 Alaska residents currently experience at least one form of disability. This estimate is based on a telephone survey of 4,364 households randomly selected to represent all households in the state of Alaska. Among the most frequently reported disabilities are non-neuromuscular mobility impairments, arthritis, hearing impairments, and learning disabilities. Other disabilities involving at least 2,000 Alaska residents include visual impairments, cardiovascular or pulmonary disorders, neuromuscular impairment, emotional disability, communicative disability and head injuries. The survey was designed to identify reasons why people cannot get the specific help they need. The remainder of this section on independent living service needs displays statewide estimates by type of service. The reader may find it helpful to refer to the questionnaire reproduced in Appendix B when reviewing the tabulations.
-
Economic Literacy and the Content of Television Network News
Lee Husky, Stephen Jackstadt, and Oliver Scott Goldsmith
-
Development in Remote Regions: What Do We Know?
Lee Husky and Thomas Morehouse
This article assesses a recent body of research on economic development and socio-political change in northern and other remote regions of developed Western nations. The regions include northern Canada, Alaska, northern Scandinavia, Australia's Northern Territory, and Micronesia. Research topics covered are theoretical perspectives, resource development, Native claims, and village economies. "Remote regions" are physically, economically, and politically distant from center of wealth and power; they are culturally or ethnically diverse and sparsely settled; and they exhibit extreme limits on their autonomy, self-sufficiency, and welfare. "Development" of these regions is defined as the overcoming of internal and external obstacles to change in conditions associated with their remoteness. The authors ask whether the research has increased our understanding of the nature of these regions and of their development problems. Their answer is generally affirmative, but they also identify specific research gaps, problems, and needs. The latter include needs for more explicit theorizing, comparative and historical approaches, and research on resource ownership, Native claims outcomes, village subsistence, and population migration.
-
Forest Service Acquisition of Harvested Native Lands in Southeast Alaska
Gunnar Knapp
This study describes Native lands in southeast Alaska and discusses the market value of these lands. The study was mandated by section 501(c) of the Tongass Timber Reform Act of 1990, to assess the feasibility of Forest Service acquisition of significantly harvested lands. During the course of the study, neither the Forest Service nor any Native corporations indicated either a specific or a general interest in such acquisitions; thus the study focuses on providing general background information about Native lands and their market value. A major problem in estimating market values for harvested timberland in southeast Alaska is that no sales of large tracts of harvested or unharvested lands have occurred. Large tracts might command significantly lower per-acre prices than have occurred in the past for small tracts. Appendixes to the report include maps showing the boundaries of Native timberlands and areas of significant timber harvesting; aerial photographs; and other detailed data.
-
Geographic distribution of northern peoples of the USSR, 1970 nd 1979
Gunnar Knapp
Data on the geographic distribution of native peoples of the Soviet North, published for the 1970 and 1979 censuses (Tsentral' noye statistcheskoye upravleniye SSSR 1973, 1984), are summarized by administrative division and nationality for comparison with data for 1959, 1970 and 1979 given in Polar Record 20(125): 169-70 (1980). Of the Chukchi, Dolgany, Eskimosy, Itel'meny, Koryaki, Mansi, Nganasany, Saamy and Yakuty, more than 70% were reported to live within a single northern administrative division in 1979. More widely distributed were the Aleuty, Evenki, Eveny, Karely, Khanty, Sel'kupy and Yukagiry. The total population of northern native peoples was 915,096 in 1970 and 951,471 in 1979.
-
Occupational Injury and Illness Rates in the Alaska Commercial Fishing Industry
Gunnar Knapp and Jennifer Christian
-
Alaska's North Slope Borough Revisited
Gunnar Knapp and Thomas Morehouse
Alaska's North Slope Borough, established in 1972, is in many ways a unique institution of Native-controlled local government in the north. The borough represents a significant case study of Native self-determination under unusually favorable conditions: indigenous, local control of both resource wealth and political power. The North Slope Borough has been the instrument by which the Inupiat of the North Slope have successfully captured and used the oil wealth in their region, with clear economic and political benefits. They have gained high levels of local public services, jobs, and incomes; and effective representation in negotiations with external corporate and government authorities. The borough has also helped to preserve and adapt critical elements of traditional Inupiat culture. Costs of development and change under North Slope Borough leadership have included waste and inefficiency as well as crime and corruption. Centralized power in borough headquarters has reduced the independence of the borough villages and encouraged borough · citizens to act like clients and consumers. The Borough economy remains dependent upon uncertain tax revenues from the oil industry, with uncertain future employment opportunities for a rapidly growing Native population. North Slope Borough government has provided the Alaska arctic Inupiat with means to greater political self-sufficiency. Overall, the North Slope Borough has responded effectively, under great pressure, to the opportunities and the problems that petroleum development has brought to the region.
-
Alaska Seafood Industry: Seafood Sector Report and Summary
Gunnar Knapp and Terrence Smith
The Alaska Seafood Industry Sector Report is a comprehensive review of Alaska's seafood harvesting and processing industry through the decade of the 1980s. This report provides an overview of the seafood industry in Alaska. We present basic information on fish and shellfish harvesting, processing,fisheries markets,seafood industry employment and income, publicrevenues and expenditures in support of fisheries,and product prices. Included under eachof these topics are separate data and discussion for salmon, shellfish, herring, halibut and bottornfish. The data presented focus on the last ten years of the fisheries,that is,1980-1989.
-
The Alaska North Slope Inupiat and Resource Development: Why The Apparent Success?
Jack Kruse
The apparently positive experience of the Alaska's North Slope Inupiat Eskimo with the massive Prudhoe Bay and Kuparuk oil field developments stands out among the generally grim experiences of indigenous peoples. The North Slope experience would thus seem to offer an excellent comparative case. To the extent that the positive image of the North Slope experience holds up, we can turn to the factors which appear to shape the relationship between resource development and indigenous people. The primary objective of the comparison is to take a small step towards the construction of a general conceptual framework.
-
Hunting and Fishing in Southeast Alaska
Jack Kruse and Marybeth Holleman
In most southeast Alaska towns, households that don't hunt and fish are unusual. A recent survey of 30 southeast communities found that about 85 percent of households get at least some of their food by hunting and fishing. But among the thousands of households that hunt and fish, there are significant differences. Figure 1 shows that while 34 percent of survey households annually harvest just 1 to 80 pounds of fish and game per household member, nearly 10 percent harvest more than 500 pounds per household member. And while some households do not eat any wild fish and game, nearly a third of survey households get half or more of their total meat and fish by hunting and fishing. These are among the findings of the Tongass Resource Use Cooperative Study (TRUCS), a 1988 survey carried out jointly by the Institute of Social and Economic Research, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, and the U.S. Forest Service. The study documents hunting and fishing for household use in all permanent southeast Alaska communities except the largest, Juneau and Ketchikan. This Review presents the findings of that survey. It also discusses how this kind of information could be useful to state policymakers trying to define who should be classified as subsistence users, and to federal and state land managers charged with protecting subsistence uses on public lands.
-
Alaska Inupiat Subsistence and Wage Employement Patterns: Understanding Individual Choice
John A. Kruse
Following a decade of intense wage employment activity, North Slope Inupiat continue to engage in subsistence activities. Two surveys conduced a decade apart are used to examine the role individual choice in the persistence of subsistence activities. Survey results document an increase in labor force participation, an increase in household income, and a decrease in household size. At the same time, the percentage of households on the North Slope obtaining over half their food from subsistence activities has increased. These are other finding suggest that continued subsistence activity is not simply a matter of necessity; it is also a matter of individual choice. Subsistence harvest and distribution activities may offer benefits well beyond nutrition that are less commonly available in wage jobs. Further research in this area may not only help explain in the persistence of subsistence activities, but also provide a link with research on the mental wellbeing of Inupiat.
Printing is not supported at the primary Gallery Thumbnail page. Please first navigate to a specific Image before printing.
