If you’re a woman looking for a taxi in New York and you prefer to be driven by another female, there’s a new livery service that will be right up your street. Launching Sept. 16 in New York City, Westchester County, and Long Island, SheTaxis—or SheRides in New York City—will make female drivers available exclusively for women riders. The goal is to accommodate women who prefer the company of drivers of the same gender, or may feel uncomfortable being driven by men. The service will take ride requests through an app and dispatch drivers wearing hot-pink scarves made of pashmina. The app will be available through Apple initially and eventually via Android devices. Stella Mateo, who is starting the service, says it also will help more women join the male-dominated taxi business.
Category Archives: Entrepreneurs
Impact of Agglomeration on Innovation: Silicon Valley
The Philadelphia Federal Reserve reports: Over the past two decades, research in this field has particularly surged. Substantial data is now available to better study these questions. It also surely has some connection to the growth of the knowledge economy, the fascination with Silicon Valley and related clusters, and similar popular themes. Particularly encouraging is the extensive set of connections being made from economic geography to adjacent fields such as labor economics, entrepreneurial finance, and business management.
Much, however, remains to be accomplished. With the handful of important exceptions reviewed previously, we still have not opened the black box of how clusters operate. Better empirical guidance about the microinteractions within clusters with respect to innovation will allow us to differentiate among models and build stronger theoretical frameworks. Fortunately, the data are within reach to do so. Many employer–employee data sets are being linked to information on innovation (e.g., inventor identifiers), and these data sets often allow precise spatial coordinates of firms. This should prove a powerful lever for seeing further inside local areas, and it is likely that the line of work will increasingly draw upon network theory.
We also need better insight into the long-term nature of agglomeration and innovation—the life cycles of innovative places. This is true within countries—innovation cores have shifted between Detroit, Boston, Silicon Valley, etc., and will continue to do so—but also true across countries. How does the rise of Bangalore impact Boston? Does the development of global innovation centers in rapidly emerging countries complement or substitute for those in advanced economies? The study of agglomeration and innovation is exciting because we are starting to make some progress at understanding the local and global nature of these phenomena.
What can local policymakers do to foster agglomeration and innovation in their cities. This is a big and difficult question, and we are right to be cautious that we do not have all the answers. However, governments have spent billions of dollars on this, and many will continue to fund “be the next Silicon Valley” initiatives. This is true in advanced economies, in nations currently looking to transition from resource-dependent to a knowledge-based economy, in developing countries looking to leapfrog growth stages, and everywhere in between. Economists must continue to provide insight on these critical matters, and ideally our insights will get sharper faster. Agglomeration and Innovation
Small Business Prospects Improve in US
From their lows of 2006, business defaults peaked in 2008 followed by a three-year period of considerable improvement. They have continued to improve since then and are now at their lowest levels in ten years broadly mirroring the Federal Reserve’s statistics on commercial lending. The drop in default rates is most likely the result of a combination of factors. Lenders have cleaned up their books so there are fewer defaults from “previous” exposures.
Lenders have tightened standards so new exposures are to stronger businesses that default at a lower rate. General business conditions have improved and businesses are better positioned to meet their financial obligations. Borrowers have dropped out of the “traditional” credit markets discouraged that the cumbersome application process would most likely result in a rejection.
- There are surprising differences in credit quality between businesses of different size. Solos—sole proprietorships, self-employed and other businesses without employees have the lowest default rate. Ignored from most statistics because of their less than four percent share of total business receipts, they directly impact the lives of over 20 million people and generate nearly a trillion dollars in receipts.
- E100—businesses employing fewer than 100 and more than 20 have the highest default rate. They are a diverse group, squeezed in the middle, financially independent of the owner/operator, informationally opaque, and too small for special attention by the financial markets.
- E20’s are the credit quality gems. Employing fewer than 20, they are the true small businesses and largely underserved by the credit markets.
- E100+ businesses account for the bulk of business employment and receipts and garner the most attention. As a group, their default rate is similar to that of their smaller counterparts—E20’s.
- There are opportunities for better serving the credit needs of businesses.
- E20 businesses represent an attractive segment for alternative lenders.
- Solos deserve another look. Lenders’ traditional approaches might be shutting out a potentially vibrant, growing and profitable segment of borrowers.
Cold Emails to Important People? Maybe Yes!
Peter Sims writes: Expect a 50-90% failure rate the first time you cold-email someone – i.e., no response. If you don’t get a reply, don’t worry – it’s hardly as bad as calling someone cold and having them hang up on you.
It’s not hard to guess or find an email address. Email addresses are usually firstname.lastname@company.com or, if it’s an entrepreneur, firstname@company.com. You can always call the main phone number and say you’re trying to email something to the CEO, and they will usually give the address.
You are politely persistent if you email once every two days, but probably should give up after 3 or 4 tries if there’s been no reply.
For busy execs, the weekends are by far the best time to try to get a note to them since they typically have more time to read something on a computer screen, rather than a device. And a surprising number of executives do read all their email – especially the personal notes. (Schultz famously does, and imagine how many messages he must receive.) Is A Cold Email to an Important Person Worth Your Time
French Woman, Amelie Mauresmo Coaches Andy Murray
It is rare that a woman coaches a man in tennis, although men have most often coached women. When Andy Murray took on Mauresmo, he opened the doors for different coaching arrangements in the game. As always with gender issues, the reasons are complicated. My guess: Mauresmo was a played her turned on herself when she made errors. Murray does the same thing. The great tennis teacher Dennis Van der Meer was detoured from a pro career because he had performance anxiety. He worked particularly well with players who suffered from the same fears.
If Mauresmo succeeds with Murray where Brad Gilbert and Ivan Lendl have failed, can it be that she understands his core problem and can make him take a page from Novak Djokovic’s book and get angry for a second and then go on?
It is nice to think that if a woman is the right person to do this job, a Wimbledon winner will pick her.
Is Growing Octopi A Good New Venture?
The main thing that prevents octopus farming at large scale is that the common octopus – Octopus vulgaris – is tough to feed in captivity, especially when first born.
After hatching, octopuses first exist as tiny organisms known as paralarvae, drifting around the upper ocean in among clouds of plankton which they feed on. It is this stage – before they become fully fledged young adults and descend further into the sea – which is hardest to replicate in aquaculture. Feeding octopuses adequately during their first two months of life is a challenge. At an industrial scale, the only possible solution is to take wild juveniles caught at sea and grow them in floating sea cages. Fishermen start with individuals of about 800 grams and grow them until they are more than 2-3kg, supplying them with crustaceans and low value fish over a period of three or four months.
Fishermen cooperatives in north-western Spain grow octopus in sea-cages. They sell them at high season – Christmas and summer – where large creatures can reach €10-12 per kilo, double the usual price. So far, research has allowed small-scale production by artisanal producers in Vigo, Galicia, reaching a production of just ten metric tons per year.
But this system is highly dependent on the success of the initial catches; without a good crop of smaller octopuses to grow in the cages, end results will always be limited. This is why farmed-raised octopus hasn’t had commercial success yet.
Over the past 15 years the Spanish Institute of Oceanography (IEO) in Vigo has carried out important and successful research to overcome the problems with octopus cultivation, and the institute is now focused on rearing octopus across a full life cycle – from hatch to catch. In fact they managed to complete full cultivation across the life cycle of several octopuses in 2001.
This experiment was achieved after using live crustacean larvae known as zoeae as prey along with the commonly used artemia, a brine shrimp. However, it is very difficult to obtain these zoeae in large quantities, making large-scale production prohibitively expensive.
What makes octopuses find larvae so tasty (or at least edible). Once identified, the idea is to ensure the cultured enriched artemia has the same features.
But once the octopus is up to a certain size, there is another step to be solved: the transition between paralarvae and juvenile. This stage is another mortality peak in octopus farms.
Working with other species that don’t have a paralarvae phase would help, such as the Mexican Four-Eyed Octopus – known scientifically as Octopus maya. Like cuttlefish, these octopuses hatch ready for the deep seas, with all the same features as their adult selves. There is still a transition phase of sorts though, when they still need commercial feed pellets to grow adequately.
Octopus maya cultivation represents the most advanced attempts at commercially sound cephalopod aquaculture. But even with this species, it has been necessary to rely on targeting a specialized gourmet-level market. In conclusion, the best octopus farms can’t yet compewith the common wild-captured product.
Developments in feeding products and techniques over the next few years will be key. Once small octopuses can be fed in large numbers, the development of a full undersea farming industry will be much easier.
Jobs Still a Problem in US
On Labor Day, Peter Schroeder and Vicki Needham write: Democrats are running out of time for an economic savior. They have long predicted that an economic turnaround would be the elixir that helps them retain control of the Senate in November. But with just a handful of big economic reports left before Election Day, the economic picture is largely in place. And while the outlook is bright, voters continue to hold a dim view of their own financial prospects.
“There are still a lot of families playing catch-up,” said Jared Bernstein at the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities. “It’s got to be awfully hard for the typical voter to figure out what Congress had done to help the economy move forward. It’s a lot easier to figure out what they’ve done to screw things up.”
Broadly speaking, the economy has made gains in the last several months. The unemployment rate has held steady or dropped every month for over a year, and new data shows the economy grew this spring at its fastest rate in more than 12 months.
A Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll found 71 percent of people blamed Washington for the economy’s woes, and dissatisfaction mainly fell on incumbents overall, rather than on a particular party. That poll found roughly half of voters believe the economy is still in a recession, even though the economic decline ended in June 2009.
Similarly, Gallup’s index of economic confidence has remained unchanged for all of 2014. People are actually less confident about the economy now than they were in January, when the unemployment rate was nearly half a percentage point higher.
With just two months to go before the midterm elections, there are just a handful of major economic indicators due before ballots are cast, including a pair of jobs reports.
With so little time left, it appears increasingly unlikely that views will change enough to boost the chances of Democrats, who are trying to escape the gravity of President Obama’s flagging poll numbers.
Some researchers argue the economic recovery has not been felt widely, with the majority of the gains going to people on the top of the income scale.
“While the economy is clearly improving, the benefits of that growth have only recently begun to reach middle class people,” said Bernstein, a former economic adviser for Vice President Biden. “People don’t pay their rent or buy their food with GDP. It’s got to reach their paychecks.”
On Wednesday, the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute reported that in the past year, wages have actually fallen for everyone but the very poorest when taking inflation into consideration. That study found that wages were stagnant or falling at nearly every income and education level. No matter how good the overall economy might be doing, voters notice the size of their paychecks most of all, experts say.
“I don’t think voters will feel good about the economy until real wage growth begins to rise,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist with Moody’s Analytics. “Since most people have jobs, they judge the health of the economy based on whether they are getting a raise that covers the increase in the cost of living.”
Democrats have tried to harness dissatisfaction over wages with a populist campaign message focused on economic inequality, raising the minimum wage and requiring equal pay for women.
While the NBC/WSJ poll found that women in particular were in favor of a Democrat-led Congress, it remains to be seen whether the populist proposals can overcome the broader concerns over the economy. Many Americans simply have not benefitted from the “recovery.” It’s about jobs.
Crafting Beer in the US
The tasting room is packed at Orpheus Brewing. The heady aroma of hops and barley hangs in the warm evening air as casually dressed 20- and 30-somethings gather around highboy tables and spill out onto the wood-planked patio overlooking Atlanta’s Piedmont Park. Already there’s a gentle buzz, although it’s hard to tell whether the buzz is a side effect of the artisanal brews on tap or simply the excitement surrounding the latest addition to the city’s burgeoning craft beer market. Scenes like this are becoming more common across the Southeast as craft beer takes hold in a region long dominated by national brands and light lagers. The Atlanta Fed report. Atlanta Fed Report on Craft Beer
How to Give Female Farmers A Voice
Jaqui Ashby writes: Imagine a typical scene in agricultural research for development: a group of predominantly male researchers visit a group of male farmers whose views they take to inform their work.
The reality is that a large proportion of smallholder farmers – the majority in some parts of the sector – are female. What can researchers do to make sure female farmers get their fair share of attention in agricultural research? Here are our top tips for implementing a successful gender strategy:
You may need to recruit specialised researchers who will make sure gender issues are addressed in technical fields like plant breeding. For example, to make sure CGIAR have the in-house expertise to tackle gender equality in research, we are forming a community of young gender researchers with a post-doctoral programme.
You could also try designing a programme which focuses explicitly on gender-related changes in farming systems. Our aquatic agricultural systems programme includes research focused on transforming gender roles and social norms that hold back the productivity of female farmers.
To give female farmers a fairer deal, research must look beyond the practical needs of women to tackle underlying constraints. This includes unequal land rights, restricted mobility or limited schooling that prevent fair access for women farmers to extension training, credit or markets. Often institutions and policies have to change before women can benefit from our technologies.
Tackling gender inequalities in farming means you need to think differently about agriculture. Instead of concentrating on crops and livestock, think about food systems that include minor crops and vegetables grown by women, and post-harvest processing, so much of which is done by women. Or about domestic use of farm resources, especially labour, but also water and fuel for cooking.
You’ll definitely need extra resources dedicated to tackling the gender inequalities which affect many aspects of how crops and livestock are raised, consumed, and sold, and who benefits from new research. So dedicated budget for this purpose in research plans, proposals and programmes are a must.
We try to ensure our technologies create opportunities for both women and men through the collection of data and evidence. This data should be disaggregated by sex, that is, analysed separately for males and females. This often involves asking questions such as “who is benefitting from you work?” which gives us a better idea of how women farmers specifically are benefiting from our technologies.
Revving Up Stalled Economies Worldwide
Stephen A. Roach writes: The latest slowdown in developed countries is not so easily dismissed. Lacking cyclical vigor in the aftermath of severe recessions, today’s economies are finding it especially difficult to shrug off the impact of shocks and break out of anemic growth trajectories. Consider the US. Though annual GPD growth is estimated to have rebounded to 4% in the second quarter of 2014, following the 2.1% first-quarter contraction, that still leaves average growth in the first half of the year at a measly 1%.
The problem is even worse in Japan, where consumers brought forward expenditures in anticipation of the sales-tax hike. The 6.1% first-quarter growth surge to which this gave rise was more than offset by a 6.8% second-quarter contraction. The net result in the first half of this year – an average decline of 0.3% – is broadly in line with the 0.2% contraction now estimated for the fourth quarter of 2013. With the trajectory of real (inflation-adjusted) growth having moved into negative territory, on average, for three consecutive quarters, Japan may once again be reverting to recessionary form. Stalled Economies Need Fundamental Repair