On January 2, 2012, the W. P. Carey School of Business lost its benefactor and friend, Wm. Polk Carey. At the January Economic Club of Phoenix luncheon, Dean Robert Mittelstaedt delivered a tribute, speaking about Mr. Carey’s early interest in business, his innovations and his high ethical standards. Mittelstaedt also recalled Mr. Carey’s support of higher education, especially the school at Arizona State University that bears his name.

Jay Butler, professor emeritus of real estate at the W. P. Carey School of Business, has been a familiar voice analyzing the Phoenix metropolitan market since 1978. With his December 2011 report, he closes his ASU career. In this podcast, Dr. Butler reviews the numbers from December and wraps up the year 2011. Butler also shares some thoughts about the much-smaller city he moved to in 1972, and the challenges ahead for the Valley of the Sun.

Sluggish consumer spending has been a prime job-killer in Arizona during what’s come to be known as the Great Recession, according to economist Dennis Hoffman, director of the L. William Seidman Research Institute. During the Economic Minute, a feature of the monthly Economic Club of Phoenix luncheons, Hoffman dissected consumption patterns going back to the 1980s. While spending is still below what might be expected given the historical trend, it is nevertheless creeping upward. Driving that increase, Hoffman said, is automobile sales.

Hamish Brewer is president and chief executive officer of JDA Software, a leading global provider of innovative supply chain management, merchandising and pricing solutions. In a speech on January 11 at the Economic Club of Phoenix luncheon, Brewer presented a primer on supply chain management, and discussed the technology-driven improvements that will alter the way business decisions are made and executed. The W. P. Carey School’s Economic Club of Phoenix provides a forum for the discussion of business and economic issues.