Creating a supranational institution: the role of the individual and the mood of the times

This study notes that, while the research literature which addresses accounting change in different countries is preoccupied with issues such as economic and legal environment, culture and consensus, research in accounting history recognizes, in biographical studies, the role sometimes played by individuals in influencing the outcomes in moments where change takes place. The article looks at the case of the creation of the International Accounting Standards Committee and analyses the evidence concerning the roles of the central individuals, Henry Benson, Douglas Morpeth and Wally Olson. It concludes that while it is difficult to disentangle the strands of institutional politics and responses to prevailing policy issues, the individuals concerned did play major roles and there is a case for the intervention of individuals to be considered in the international accounting literature as one of the issues that helps build accounting infrastructure

The possibilities and pitfalls presented by a pragmatic approach to ecosystem service valuation in an arid biodiversity hotspot

Arid regions are home to unique fauna, flora, and vulnerable human populations, and present a challenge for sustainable land-use management. We undertook an assessment and valuation of three key services, grazing, tourism and water supply in the arid Succulent Karoo biome in western South Africa - a globally recognised biodiversity hotspot. We were looking for ways and values that could be used to promote conservation in this region through the adoption of sustainable land-use practices which have human welfare benefits. Our study adopted a variety of methods in valuing these services in developing ranges of values for these services. At the biome level, total annual values ranged from $19e114 million for grazing,$ 2e$20 million for tourism, and$ 300e3120 million for water. These values are generally low compared with values derived for other biomes and regions and do not adequately reflect known dependence and the importance of ecosystem services to the residents of this biome. The ecosystems here provide small but critical benefits enabling communities to sustain themselves and small changes in service levels can have major welfare effects. Highlighting these sensitivities will require finding more appropriate ways to link ecological and social factors

Slavery and Plantation Capitalism in Louisiana's Sugar Country

Sugar planters in the antebellum South managed their estates progressively, efficiently, and with a political economy that reflected the emerging capitalist values of nineteenth-century America. By fusing economic progress and slave labor, sugar planters revolutionized the means of production and transformed the institution of slavery. Slaveholders and bondspeople redefined the parameters of paternalism and recast the master-slave relationship along a novel path. Louisiana slaves accommodated the machine, holding no torch for Luddism while concurrently shaping the agro-industrial revolution to achieve modest economic independence and relative autonomy within the plantation quarters