CSUDH News

The primary source of news and information about California State University, Dominguez Hills, its students, faculty, and staff.

Economics

‘Lessons in the Lyrics’ Essay Contest

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Lessons in the LyricsIn honor of CSUDH’s 2021 Black History Month theme “The Racial Wealth Gap,” the Rose Black Resource Center and Associated Students, Inc., is partnering with the Africana Studies Department to host “Lessons in the Lyrics,” an essay contest to encourage students to find financial lessons and advice within the lyrics of their favorite rap or hip-hop songs.

Winners will receive Amazon gift cards: $200 for first, $100 for second, and $50 for third.

To view the guidelines and instructions visit: https://forms.gle/vyutJ82aq3XpumPCA

The deadline to submit an essay is February 28 at 11:59 p.m.

CSUDH’s South Bay Economics Institute Predicts Rebound by Mid-2021

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(Left to right) Jose Martinez, co-director of the South Bay Economic Institute; Sam Polk, CEO of Everytable; Victor Parker, deputy associate administrator for the U.S. Small Business Administration; Dana Finding, B2B product management and strategy for Route; Jennifer Brodmann, assistant professor of finance; and Fynnwin Prager, co-director of the South Bay Economic Institute.
(left to right) Jose Martinez, co-director of the South Bay Economics Institute, Everytable CEO Sam Polk, Victor Parker, deputy associate administrator for the U.S. Small Business Administration, Dana Finding, B2B product management and strategy for Route, Jennifer Brodmann, assistant professor of finance, and Fynnwin Prager, co-director of the South Bay Economics Institute.

While the South Bay and Los Angeles economies have taken massive hits since the onset of the pandemic in the U.S., researchers in the South Bay Economics Institute expect Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to reach pre-COVID-19 levels by mid-2021, and employment to follow suit the following year.

This was one of the many economic projections presented in the 2020 South Bay Economic Forecast report, which California State University, Dominguez Hills (CSUDH) released on Oct. 1 as part of its South Bay Economic Forecast conference.

The sixth annual conference was titled “Adopting to Change: Surviving and Thriving During Disruption,” and hosted on campus for a virtual audience of guests representing cities and businesses throughout the region. The university’s South Bay Economics Institute (SBEI) produced the forecast report, which this year is framed around the COVID-19 outbreak, lockdown, and the resulting recession.

The Adapting to Change Panel featured Sam Polk, CEO of Everytable, Dana Finding, B2B product management and strategy for the mobile app package tracking service Route, and Victor Parker, deputy associate administrator for the U.S. Small Business Administration. To view the South Bay Economic Forecast conference in its entirety visit ___URL here____.
(left to right) The Adapting to Change Panel featured: Victor Parker, deputy associate administrator for the U.S. Small Business Administration; Dana Finding, B2B product management and strategy for the mobile app package tracking service Route; and Sam Polk, CEO of Everytable.

The SBEI is made up of CSUDH faculty members: Assistant Professor of Finance Jennifer Brodmann, Assistant Professor of Public Administration Fynnwin Prager, and Professor of Economics Jose Martinez.

This year’s conference was organized into two panel discussions focused on the regional economy and how local businesses are adapting to change, with participants fielding questions from host Frank Mottek, anchor for KNX 1070 NEWSRADIO.

South Bay Economic Forecast Report

During the conference, SBEI faculty discussed several key topics, including the largest changes in the economy, accelerating economic trends, and who has been the most impacted due to the lockdown.

The SBEI found sobering national economic data. Between the first and second quarter in 2020, the GDP declined from -5 percent to a staggering -32.9 percent. Previous major economic shocks have paled in comparison, such as the peak 2008 fourth-quarter decline of -8.4 percent.

However, according to the SBEI’s report, the home-based economy has made substantial gains, with 45 to 56 percent of the workforce working from home (up from 5 to 15 percent). E-commerce has soared this year, up by $77 billion from March to June. There has also been increased spending on groceries, household supplies, and home entertainment.

“Obviously, on a macro scale, we’ve seen significant impacts to GDP, the likes of which in a single quarter we have not seen since The Great Depression,” said Prager. “It has impacted the entire economy regardless of which state we’re in. Things have bounded back a little bit, which is good news.”

To review and download the South Bay Economic Forecast Report visit https://www.csudh.edu/uce/economic-forecast/

Unemployment climbed exponentially this year from 3.5 percent in February, to 13.3 percent in May, before experiencing a drop to 11.1 percent in June.

“Employment in the South Bay and Los Angeles has suffered. We have all felt that. It has been worse than the previous recession of 2008-2009, so that has had a big impact in this area,” said Martinez. “Different sectors of the economy are recovering at different speeds, but we expect most sectors to recover next year.”

Most Impacted

COVID-19 has impacted businesses and industry in a variety of ways. According to the SBEI’s report, the most impacted sectors in the Los Angeles region include sales, hospitality, healthcare, community and social services, and personal care. Those with the greatest negative impact due to the lockdown include hair and nail salons, gyms, movie theaters, restaurants, music and theatre venues, and the event industry.

“Those providing more essential goods, such as grocery stores, deliveries, and those that are already in cloud-based technologies have had a huge boost to their performance,” said Brodmann. “But we have seen drastic hits to hospitality and event spaces…anything that features indoor activities has had to shift to more outdoor accommodations, such as restaurants, and we have seen a shift to more delivery pickups both in the retail and hospitality sectors.”

South Bay Resiliency

The South Bay benefits from its economic and workforce diversity. Its industrial sectors have the flexibility to recover more quickly, especially as high-tech Silicon Beach and biotech sectors continue to grow, and its workforce is demographically and educationally prepared to help aid recovery.

The cities of the South Bay have also fared better with the virus compared to national hotspots. The region’s deaths per 100,000 population is 25.6 deaths, compared to the Unites States’ 47.9.

Innovations and opportunities have also presented themselves during the pandemic. Many companies in the South Bay and L.A. County have demonstrated an ability to adapt with a self-reliant supply chain. Others have adapted to shifts in demands for such products as personal protective equipment (PPE), lab testing, and the rise in demand for home delivery and e-commerce.

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues, the “new normal” will consist of many more businesses not being able to function as before, especially hospitality, tourism, gyms, healthcare, and education. Even with adaptations, up to 10 percent of economic recovery is predicted to be put on hold.

Fortunately, the L.A. area is remarkably diverse, and the South Bay even more so, says Martinez. “We are confident that overall, though we are dealing with this pandemic that is hurting a lot of sectors, we’re going to do fine and find a way to innovate and move on through this pandemic,” he said. “While some businesses are unfortunately closing, others are opening. Those are the signs you want to see.”

LB Business Journal: Strong Tech Sector, Infrastructure Investments will Aid South Bay Economic Recovery

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(left to right) The Adapting to Change Panel featured: Victor Parker, deputy associate administrator for the U.S. Small Business Administration; Dana Finding, B2B product management and strategy for the mobile app package tracking service Route; and Sam Polk, CEO of Everytable.
(left to right) The Adapting to Change Panel during South Bay Economic Forecast featured: Victor Parker, deputy associate administrator for the U.S. Small Business Administration; Dana Finding, B2B product management and strategy for the mobile app package tracking service Route; and Sam Polk, CEO of Everytable.

Source: Long Beach Business Journal

In many ways, Cal State Dominguez Hills’ 2020 South Bay Economic Forecast and Industry Outlook paints as grim a picture as any economic analysis of the current situation. Significant job losses, racial inequity among those suffering the harshest impacts of the economic slowdown–Los Angeles County, and by extension the South Bay, have been hit hard.

But there are glimmers of hope that have led the university’s economic expert to feel more confident in the region’s economic future than the projected 15.6% year-over-year increase in unemployment for the second quarter might suggest.

The tech industry, one of the largest employers in the region, has fared well during the pandemic, in part because companies and households have become more tech-reliant while the outside world was continuously shut down.

“Our world’s definitely become smaller and the economy is reflecting that,” Fynnwinn Prager, co-director of the South Bay Economics Institute at CSU Dominguez Hills, said at a virtual panel discussion on the report.

Telecommuting and food delivery are among the existing trends that have picked up speed in the pandemic. In the South Bay, the latter has led to a jump in the number of “ghost kitchens,” cooking spaces that are designed to prep food for delivery only, no inside dining intended.

The Los Angeles-based startup Everytable, which aims to provide healthy food at fast food prices, was presented as one example of a company that has been able to increase sales during the pandemic.

According to the company’s CEO, Sam Polk, the company now delivers 180,000 meals per week from its centralized kitchen to locations across L.A. County, marking a six-fold increase compared to pre-pandemic times.

To reach this impressive level of growth, Everytable has tapped into new opportunities like delivering meals to homeless residents housed in hotels as part of the state’s Project Roomkey and more general trends like meal subscription services.

“It’s been a fascinating acceleration of some of these trends that were already taking place,” Prager noted.

Jose Martinez, fellow panelist and co-director of the institute, said he is expecting the South Bay to make a comparably swift recovery, especially because of the the tech-heavy region’s propensity for innovation.

“As hard of a challenge as our current situation is, it also presents opportunities for some companies to bring new ideas, to innovate,” Martinez said.

How quickly the region recovers will be in part a result of local governments’ ability to adapt to changing business needs, Prager said. Investments in infrastructure that will help trade flow more smoothly through Southern California’s ports of entry–both land and sea–will also play a role, he said.

On account of its weather, well-educated population and attractive natural environment, the South Bay will remain a popular destination for businesses,  despite current predictions of urban drain, Prager said.

“In the long run, I don’t think any of us have any concerns about the desirability of not just cities, but our region as a whole,” he said.

 

CSUDH Awarded Over $15 Million in Research Grants for 2019-2020

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CSUDH Wins Over $15 Million in Grants for 2019-2020With more than $15.8 million in grants for research and creative projects awarded between July 2019 and June 2020, California State University, Dominguez Hills (CSUDH) continues to bring in impressive grant totals, despite the radical disruption to last year’s academic calendar caused by COVID-19. This is a $2.3 million increase from CSUDH’s 2018-2019 totals of $13.5 million.

Most of the larger grants for 2019-2020 have already been announced, including:

The university also received two additional large grants that helped add to the impressive total.

CBAPP Team to Examine California’s Freight System

Associate Professor of Information Systems and Operations Management Jian-Yu (Fisher) Ke and his team received a $69,489 grant from the CSU Transportation Consortium at the Mineta Transportation Institute for their project titled “Achieving Excellence for California’s Freight System.” The purpose of their project is to determine the performance metrics that contribute to a competitive freight system. The researchers will evaluate the current position of California’s freight system compared with other states’ and provide policy recommendations to increase the competitiveness of the system.

“California’s freight system – comprised of shipping ports, railroad, trucking, and airports – plays a critical role in the state’s economy,” says Ke. “However, the state is facing increased competition from other regions of the U.S., Mexico, and Canada, while also trying to meet sustainability goals, improve resilience, and enhance worker welfare.”

Researchers will work to establish and test performance metrics for each freight segment (ports, railroad, trucking, etc.) through structured interviews with key industry stakeholders. “We hope to contribute to a broader debate about improving the competitiveness of California’s freight system, and help policy makers identify investment opportunities,” says Ke.

The College of Business Administration and Public Policy (CBAPP) research team involved in the project will also include the co-directors of CSUDH’s South Bay Economic Institute – Fynnwin Prager, associate professor of Public Administration and Jose N. Martinez, associate professor of Economics; as well as Chris Cagle from the South Bay Workforce Investment Board. CSUDH graduate and undergraduate students will also be participating in the project, which is expected to be a collaboration among CBAPP faculty, students, and industry experts.

Gerth Archives: Expanding Digitization Project

brochure images from CSUJAD
Images from brochures collected by the California State University Japanese American Digitization Project (CSUJAD).

CSUDH’s Donald R. and Beverly J. Gerth Archives and Special Collections and the California State University Japanese American Digitization Project (CSUJAD) received a $100,000 grant from the California Civil Liberties Public Education Program (CCLPEP). The grant will allow the archive to expand its digitization and teaching program, comparing and contrasting the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II with the attempts by the U.S. government to suppress dissent and immigration during the era known as the Red Scare (1940-1960).

The project is an outgrowth of the Gerth Archives’ ongoing work on the CSUJAD Project, which has digitized and collected thousands of documents, photographs, and other materials related to the history of Japanese Americans in California. A collaborative effort between over 20 institutions, the CSUJAD has digitized approximately 45,000 items since its launch.

As Gerth Archives director Greg Williams says, “This project is an extension of our work on CSUJAD because CCLPEP was interested in looking into other civil liberties issues of the time. Because we already had collections relating to the Red Scare of the 1940s and 50s, we thought that we could combine materials about the Japanese internment and incarceration with the Red Scare in California and elsewhere and work to make that material more available to researchers.”

“There are parallels between the Japanese internment and the Red Scare,” Williams continues. “They both involve civil liberties violations and connect to national ideas of civil rights. Southern California was a hub for these activities – a large population of local Japanese Americans were incarcerated, and the area has long been a destination for immigrants, many of whom were stigmatized, attacked, or deported during the Red Scare.”

The new project will digitize over 4,500 materials, create a teaching guide following the California History/Social Science Content Framework, and update the CSUJAD website. Materials to be digitized include family, camp, and organization records dealing with incarceration, redress, the Red Scare and civil liberties violations.

Expanding the collection now is important, says Williams. “An expanded CSUJAD can broaden the public’s understanding of the Japanese American mass incarceration during World War II and the Red Scare that followed in California, provide access to records that have been isolated from public view for decades, and show connections to current immigration controversies and threats to civil rights and democracy.”

South Bay Economic Forecast Examines How Region is Adapting to COVID-19

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CSUDH's South Bay Economic Forecast Examines How Region is Adapting to COVID-19(Carson, CA) From shifts in manufacturing and the new industries emerging as a result of COVID-19, to how local industries may recover after a massive economic blow, California State University, Dominguez Hills’ 2020-21 South Bay Economic Forecast virtual conference on Oct. 1 will provide an in-depth assessment of South Bay industries and markets, and discuss the potential for a rebound by mid-2021.

The 6th Annual South Bay Economic Forecast virtual conference and reception will take place Thursday, Oct. 1, from 2 to 3:30 p.m. To register and for more information, visit https://www.csudh.edu/ economic-forecast/.

Titled “Adapting to Change: Surviving and Thriving During Disruption,” the conference will include presentations by CSUDH economics and public policy professors and a panel discussion with regional industry experts about how business is adapting to the changes the COVID-19 pandemic has caused. Frank Mottek, anchor for KNX 1070 NEWSRADIO will serve as emcee and panel moderator.

The featured panelists will all be together, socially distanced, in the CSUDH University Theatre. Their live broadcast will be streamed to attendees. To further re-create a traditional conference environment, the virtual format creates a simulated ballroom, with attendees “seated” at tables.

A virtual reception will take place after the conference from 3:30 to 4 p.m. Attendees will be able to mingle in the simulated ballroom and chat with panelists and each other.

CSUDH developed the South Bay Economic Forecast conference six years ago to provide a focused look at the current state of the region’s economy and forecast for the coming year. This year, for the first time, the university’s South Bay Economics Institute (SBEI) produced the forecast report, which is framed around the COVID-19 outbreak, lockdown, and the recession.

“The South Bay economy has taken a massive hit, with hospitality, personal services, entertainment, and the government sector being especially affected given the unprecedented and evolving nature of the pandemic,” said Fynnwin Prager, assistant professor of business administration at CSUDH and co-director of the SBEI. “In the report, we are cautious about projecting too far into the future; however, many forecasters expect GDP to reach pre-COVID-19 levels by mid-2021 and employment to catch up the following year. We are optimistic about the ability of our dynamic and diverse South Bay businesses to find ways to innovate and adapt, to survive and thrive coming out of the recession.” 

Conference Panel Details: 

South Bay Economic Panel and Q&A:

  • Fynnwin Prager, co-director of the SBEI: U.S. and California forecast supply chain, and foreign trade.
  • Jose Martinez, co-director of the SBEI: housing and labor markets.
  • Jennifer Brodmann, assistant professor of finance: innovation and opportunities, entrepreneurial analysis.

Adapting to Change Panel and Q&A:

  • Sam Polk, CEO of Everytable, a social enterprise on a mission to transform the food system to make delicious and healthy food affordable and accessible to everyone, everywhere. Topic: The Future of Food.
  • Dana Finding, B2B product management and strategy for Route, a mobile app that that enables customers to automatically visually track packages anywhere, and merchants with visual order tracking, package protection, effortless claim-filing, and the world’s first universal order history. Topic: e-commerce, immersive technologies, and digital transformation.
  • Victor Parker, deputy associate administrator for the U.S. Small Business Administration: Topic: Small Business Resiliency.