Keynote speakers

1. Professor Barry Bluestone
2. The Reverend Tim Costello

Professor Barry Bluestone Understanding U.S. economic growth in the late 1990s and today

Address based on Prof. Bluestone's recent book "Growing Prosperity: The Battle for Growth with Equity in the 21st Century", Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001.

Barry Bluestone is the Stearns Trustee Professor of Political Economy and director of the Center for Urban and Regional Policy at Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts. Before assuming this new post, Bluestone spent twelve years at the University of Massachusetts at Boston as the Frank L. Boyden Professor of Political Economy and as a Senior Fellow at the University's John W. McCormack Institute of Public Affairs. He was the founding director of U.Mass.-Boston's Ph.D. Program in Public Policy. Before coming to U.Mass. in the Fall of 1986, he taught economics at Boston College for fifteen years and was director of the University's Social Welfare Research Institute. Professor Bluestone was raised in Detroit, Michigan and attended the University of Michigan where he received his Ph.D. in 1974.

On partial leave from U.Mass.-Boston in 1995, Bluestone served as a member of the senior policy staff of Congressman Richard Gephardt, the Democratic Leader of the U.S. House of Representatives.

As a political economist, Bluestone has written widely in the areas of income distribution, business and industrial policy, labour-management relations, higher education finance, and urban and regional economic development. He contributes regularly to academic, as well as popular journals, and is the author of nine books. In 1982, he published The Deindustrialization of America (co-authored with Bennett Harrison of the New School for Social Research) which analysed the restructuring of American industry and its economic and social impact on workers and communities. A sequel published in 1988, The Great U-Turn: Corporate Restructuring and the Polarizing of America, also co-authored with Harrison, investigated how economic policies have contributed to growing inequality. In earlier books, Bluestone investigated the low-wage labour market, the aircraft industry, and the revolution in the retail trade sector. In 1992, Negotiating the Future: A Labor Perspective on American Business was published. Co-authored with his father, Irving Bluestone, the book traces the history of labour-management relations since World War II and offers the concept of the 'Enterprise Compact' as an approach to industrial relations which can boost productivity, improve product quality and innovation, and enhance employment security. As of 1998, Korean, Spanish, and Japanese editions had been published.

Professor Bluestone has just completed two new books. The first of these, co-authored again with Harrison and titled Growing Prosperity: The Battle for Growth with Equity in the 21st Century, investigates the prospects for faster economic growth in the U.S. It was published by Houghton Mifflin and the Twentieth Century Fund in January 2000. The second, The Boston Renaissance: Race, Space, and Economic Change in an American Metropolis, published by the Russell Sage Foundation, is the culmination of nearly five years of research on the new Boston economy. It recounts the industrial and demographic revolution in post-World War II Boston and its impact on racial and ethnic attitudes, residential segregation, and the labor market success of whites, blacks, and Latinos.

As part of his work, Bluestone spends a considerable amount of time consulting with trade unions, with industry groups, and with various federal and state government agencies. He was executive adviser to the Governor's Commission on the Future of Mature Industries in Massachusetts and has worked with the economic development departments of various states. He has testified before Congressional committees and lectures regularly before university, labour, community, and business groups. As a founding member of the Nommos Consulting Group and working with Streamline Communications, he has been involved in the development of multimedia productions and CD-ROMs used in training sessions for labor/management groups and for public school teachers.

Professor Bluestone is also a founding member of the Economic Policy Institute, along with Robert Reich, Lester Thurow, Robert Kuttner, Ray Marshall, and Jeff Faux.

The Reverend Tim Costello

Director, Urban Seed
Minister, Collins St Baptist Church
Melbourne

Tim Costello was born in Melbourne on 4 March 1955. He was educated at Carey Baptist Grammar School and graduated in Law at Monash University in 1978. In 1979 he practised as a solicitor in family and criminal law, and in 1981, travelled to Switzerland with his wife Merridie where they both studied theology at Rueshlikon College, outside Zurich, Switzerland, returning to Australia in 1984.

Ordained a Baptist Minister in 1987, the Reverend Tim Costello along with a team of others rebuilt the congregation at the St Kilda Baptist Church, opened a drop-in centre and worked in a legal practice for those for whom the law is normally inaccessible. As elected Mayor of St Kilda Council in 1993, he became well-known for championing the cause of local democracy.

In 1995 he was appointed a Minister at Collins St Baptist Church in the centre of Melbourne and the Director of Urban Seed, a Christian not-for-profit organization created in response to concern about homelessness, drug abuse and the marginalisation of the city�s street people. Urban Seed offers hospitality to those at the margins of society, providing a network amongst street kids, outreach to the disadvantaged and includes a lunch program which feeds around 40-60 people each day.

As Director of Urban Seed, Tim has been the embodiment of Urban Seed�s objective to engage society on the critical moral, spiritual, social and cultural issues of our time. For a number of years now, Tim Costello has been a leading voice on issues such as urban poverty, homelessness, unemployment, problem gambling, reconciliation and substance abuse.

Tim�s current speaking commitments take him all over Australia. He is also actively involved in some international causes such as reconciliation in Nagaland, India and the work of the Baptist World Aid as their Patron. He is a spokesperson for the Interchurch Gambling Taskforce, a member of the Australian Earth Charter Committee, and a Council member of the Australian Centre for Christianity and Culture.

Tim has recently completed a three year term as National President of the Baptist Union of Australia.

Tim has also written three books: Streets of Hope: Finding God in St Kilda, Tips from a travelling soul searcher and the recently released book co-written with Royce Millar, Wanna Bet? Winners and losers in gambling�s luck myth.

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