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  Industrial and Regional Clusters: Concepts and Comparative Applications, 2nd ed.

  Edward M. Bergman and Edward J. Feser

  Industry clusters refer to the tight connections that bind certain firms and industries together in various aspects of common behavior, e.g., geographic location, sources of innovation, shared suppliers and factors of production, and so forth. Industry cluster concepts date from the last century, but they have captured the imagination of active policymakers and the serious attention of scholars only in the last decade of this century. Because clustering behavior is such a pervasive aspect of modern economies and global trade, it draws the attention of many different disciplines and benefits from their scholarship. Although a consideration of research on this topic might alone justify book-length treatment, industry cluster concepts are also powerful metaphors that are used routinely to guide industrial and regional development planning throughout the world.

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  Point Pattern Analysis

  Barry N. Boots and Arthur Getls

  Points on a map can represent many important phenomena, including towns, stores and centers for shopping, industrial locations, parks, archaeological sites, plant and animal species, the home site of a person with a possible environmentally related disease, and so on. The authors introduce readers to the general analysis of the location of points on maps. Map patterns are assumed to result from one or more spatial processes in the human or physical world. Often the causal forces are known, but more frequently, researchers seek to identify them. The analysis of the spatial pattern of the phenomena under study can be a precursor for revealing the underlying causal relationships. The emphasis is upon applications, so a clear informative example explained in a step-by-step manner accompanies each point pattern analysis method. SCIENTIFIC GEOGRAPHY SERIES, Grant Ian Thrall, editor.

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  Human Migration

  W. A. V. Clark

  Human migration affects all regions of our planet: too many persons, or too few, move into, or out of, a place. Studies of migration and mobility are a critical component of understanding population growth and change and subsequent societal problems. This book focuses on substantive empirical results generated in the three decades leading up to publication and organizes them so that the student of population will have a clearer understanding of the nature of migration, its place within demography and population geography, and the implications of population changes through migration. Although the emphasis lies on substantive empirical information, those important conceptual structures that are part of our present understanding of mobility are introduced in verbal form. SCIENTIFIC GEOGRAPHY SERIES, Grant Ian Thrall, editor.

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  An Introduction to State and Local Public Finance

  Thomas A. Garrett and John C. Leatherman

  Public finance is the field of economics that studies government activities and the various means of financing these activities. In general, public finance deals with any of the three levels of government: federal, state, and local. While the basic theories of public finance apply regardless of the level of government studied, state and local public finance has emerged as an important sub-field of public finance in recent years.

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  Key Concepts in Sustainable Development

  William Grunkemeyer and Myra Moss

  The question we are concerned with in this document is whether sustainable development can be a community wide priority and behavior that expands, and perhaps even at times replaces, existing priorities and behaviors. The materials contained in this document are intended to help both those entering the sustainability discussion and those with a rich history of implementing sustainable activities to consider ways traditional development leadership can be integrated into current sustainable development efforts. Included in our effort to encourage this integration is a history of the sustainable development concept, a review and discussion regarding the actual definition of sustainability, a search and explanation regarding various organizations involved in the sustainability question, a comparison of sustainable development to traditional development philosophy.

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  Gravity and Spatial Interaction Models

  Kingsley E. Haynes and A. Stewart Fotheringham

  One of the major intellectual achievements and, at the same time, perhaps the most useful contribution by spatial analysts to social science literature is the development of gravity and spatial interaction models. This book provides an excellent and lucid introduction to the evolution of the gravity and spatial interaction models and their specification. These models are placed within the historical context of the development of the general spatial interaction literature. Haynes and Fotheringham outline the characteristics that have contributed to making these models among the most widely applied in forecasting and in general studies of migration, communications, transportation, and retailing, among other topics in urban and regional analysis. SCIENTIFIC GEOGRAPHY SERIES, Grant Ian Thrall, editor.

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  Regional Input-Output Analysis

  Geoffrey J. D. Hewings

  Input-output analysis is a method by which the flow of production can be traced among the various sectors of the economy, through to final demand or export. The most fundamental problem of input-output analysis is to calculate the necessary output levels of each industry required to achieve a final output. What is the effect upon the local economy from the introduction of a new firm? What are the economic linkages between regions and how is equilibrium between regions achieved? What if the supply of an input in one region becomes restricted through some bottleneck? Input-output analysis can be used to address these issues. This book will prove to be a valuable resource to students and practitioners of the planning sciences, including urban and regional economics, regional science, engineering, public administration, business management science, city and regional planning, as well as scientists in economic geography. SCIENTIFIC GEOGRAPHY SERIES, Grant Ian Thrall, editor.

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  An Introduction to Regional Economics

  Edgar M. Hoover and Frank Giarratani

  Hoover, Edgar M., Frank Giarratani. An Introduction to Regional Economics. Web Book of Regional Science. Regional Research Institute, West Virginia University. Edited by Scott Loveridge, 1999: Randall Jackson, 2020.

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  Input-Output Analysis: A Primer, 2nd ed.

  Randall W. Jackson

  Input-output (IO) analysis is a modeling framework that records the business transactions in an economy over a given time period. It is used in any number of ways, all of which are intended to improve our understanding of how industries in an economy are interrelated. The economy under study can be a national economy, a multi-state, state, or multi-county regional economy. As its name suggests, the IO accounting framework describes and depicts the input and output relationships of all industries in an economy. The utility of the IO framework is manifold. Most immediately, the inter-industry transactions table, or input-output matrix, describes the direct sales and purchases relationships among industries. The framework, in its several forms, is useful for assessing the impacts of changes in economic activity within or outside a region and for targeting industries for retention or recruitment policies. This brief monograph introduces the IO framework and addresses these and related concepts and applications.

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  Keystone Sector Identification: A Graph Theory-Social Network Analysis Approach

  Maureen Kilkenny and Laura Nalbarte

  This Web Book presents a new a method for identifying keystone sectors in communities, where sectors are broadly defined to include churches, clubs, associations, and public institutions as well as firms and businesses. In an arch, the keystone is the one with the unique wedge shape at the top of the arch that is critical for the arch’s structural stability. While all other stones in an arch substitute for one another and can be removed (in pairs), the arch will fall apart if the keystone is lacking. The term keystone species was first coined by ecologists in the late 1960s with respect to the species uniquely responsible for the structure and integrity of an ecosystem. We now coin the term for use in community development analysis. In a community, the keystone sector is one that plays a unique role, without which the community is fundamentally and detrimentally altered.

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  Central Place Theory

  Leslie J. King

  Abstract. Central Place Theory seeks to provide an explanation of the numbers, sizes, and locations of urban settlements in essentially rural, farming regions. Why is it, for example, that there are few large cities, many more towns, and an even larger number of small villages or hamlets in such regions? Why is it that the smaller places are located closer together and the larger ones further apart? What are the relations between the roles of the different-sized urban settlements? How do these patterns and arrangements change over time and from one region to another? These are the sorts of questions addressed by central place theory. Kink, Leslie J. Central Place Theory. Web Book of Regional Science. Regional Research Institute, West Virginia University. Edited by Grant Ian Thrall, 1985; Randall Jackson, 2020. Scientific Geography Series

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  The Elements of Input-Output Analysis

  William H. Miernyk

  The first writers to treat economics systematically — Adam Smith and his immediate successors — dealt with the economy as a whole. In today’s terminology they were concerned with macroeconomics. Later economists, notably Alfred Marshall and his followers in the Neo-classical school, focused upon the household and the firm. They inaugurated the era of microeconomics which led to Chamberlin’s theory of monopolistic competition and Mrs. Robinson’s theory of imperfect competition. The Neo-classical economists and their successors analyzed the forces which result in economic equilibrium, but their approach was that of partial equilibrium, or the method of examining "one thing at a time." During the 1930s, under the influence of John Maynard Keynes, there was a revival of interest in aggregative economics. Keynesians drew on the work of both Classical and Neo-classical schools. Like the latter, they were concerned with the forces which result in equilibrium or disequilibrium, but they returned to the Classical tradition in their emphasis on the economy as a whole. The Neo-classical economists had devoted much of their attention to the theory of value - examination of the forces which determine prices under given market conditions. The Keynesians, however, were primarily concerned with the determinants of income and employment. Their system was based on broad aggregates: total employment, total consumption, total investment, and national income. Keynesian economists showed how these variables are related to one another, and how changes in one affect the rest. They were much less interested than the Neoclassical economists in examining the effects of a change in one variable on the assumption that all others remained fixed. In this sense the Keynesians were concerned with general rather than partial equilibrium. But neither the Neo-classical economists nor the Keynesians were directly concerned with economic interdependence, with the structure of the economy and the way in which its individual sectors fit together.

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  Spatial Diffusion

  Richard Morrill, Gary L. Gaile, and Grant Ian Thrall

  This volume is about how we come to have the culture and ideas we have. Most social and economic change is a direct consequence of the diffusion of some idea or phenomenon. Ideas become diffused through society in a regular manner, and because of this regularity their diffusion can often be analyzed and even predicted. The same analytical framework applied to describe and predict the spread of some cultural or human phenomenon, such as political turmoil, can also be applied to an analysis of the spread of disease. The authors chronicle the evolution of ideas for analyzing, simulating, and forecasting the diffusion of phenomena. The goal is to contribute a synthesis of the roles of time and space, how they interdependently govern the diffusion of phenomena, and how such an understanding could be used to enhance the scientific predictability of diffusion in a wide array of contexts. SCIENTIFIC GEOGRAPHY SERIES, Grant Ian Thrall, editor.

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  Spatial Autocorrelation

  John Odland

  The analysis of spatial distributions and the processes that produce and alter them is a central theme in geographic research and this volume is concerned with statistical methods for analyzing spatial distributions by measuring and testing for spatial autocorrelation. Spatial autocorrelation exists whenever a variable exhibits a regular pattern over space in which its values at a set of locations depend on values of the same variable at other locations. Spatial autocorrelation is present, for example, when similar values cluster together on a map. Spatial autocorrelation statistics make it possible to use formal statistical procedures to measure the dependence among nearby values in a spatial distribution, test hypotheses about geographically distributed variables, and develop statistical models of spatial patterns. Scientific Geography Series Editor: Grant Ian Thrall.

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  Regional Population Projection Models

  Andrei Rogers

  Public and private institutions, organizations, and firms require information on potential demographic futures. Public organizations must anticipate future population needs and thereby judge the need for efforts to alter current population processes and trends. Private firms maximize possible profits by adjusting product lines and shifting distribution networks using information obtained from regional demographic projections. This book demonstrates how researchers can analyze the evolution of multiple regional populations, each interconnected by migration flows. The author adopts a geographical perspective by considering how fertility, mortality, and migration combine to determine the growth, age composition, and spatial distribution of a national multiregional population. This monograph should be of use to those responsible for carrying out regional population projections in public and private organizations such as national, state, and local governments, business firms, foundations, universities, labor unions, social service organizations, and various public interest groups. SCIENTIFIC GEOGRAPHY SERIES, Grant Ian Thrall, editor.

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  Regional Impact Models

  William A. Schaffer

  This survey of regional input-output models and their use in impact analysis evolved from over twenty years of experience in constructing regional economic models and in teaching about them. Its objectives are to present this family of models in an easily understood format, to show that the models we use in economics are well-structured, and to provide a basis for understanding applications of these models in impact analysis. The models are presented in such a way that understanding the logic and algebra of the simplest economic-base model leads to an understanding of the only slightly more complex regional and interregional input-output models in common use today. The advanced models become matrix-algebra extensions of the simple models.

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  Industrial Location

  Michael J. Webber

  In this book, Professor Michael Webber analyzes the strategy and pattern of the location of industrial production. After reviewing data sources and the history of manufacturing, Professor Webber discusses the principles that govern the location decisions of firms. It should be of particular interest to students of public policy analysis to read Webber’s arguments supporting the contention that industrial location incentives and tax policies have not been significant long-term factors of industrial location; rather, Professor Webber demonstrates that as transport costs have fallen, the main location factors have become labor and agglomeration. In turn, both labor and agglomeration are themselves dependent upon the general economic, political, and social system. Webber uses numerous data illustrations to support the theoretical arguments in this book. He concludes with three examples that illustrate his industrial location analysis: (l) the aircraft parts industry in New England; (2) the industrial decline in the United Kingdom; and (3) the location pattern of manufacturing within cities. The stress that Professor Webber places on the historical context of decisions and on the social production of labor and agglomeration characteristics are novel issues for an introductory treatment of location theory. -Grant Ian Thrall, SCIENTIFIC GEOGRAPHY SERIES Webber, Michael J. Industrial Location. Web Book of Regional Science. Regional Research Institute, West Virginia University. Edited by Grant Ian Thrall, 1985; Randall Jackson, 2020.

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  Spatial Transportation Modeling

  Christian Werner

  Transportation modeling is both one of the valuable job skills offered by scientific geography and a topic that can serve to develop analytic intuition. This book is designed for the student receiving a first exposure to the transportation problem as well as an introduction to the formal modeling of geographic phenomena. Transportation modeling is a good and particularly useful example of the sharing of paradigms and methodologies between scientific geography and other sciences. Professor Christian Werner’s geographical approach should be of particular interest to students and followers of the literature not only in human geography but also in operations research, transportation engineering, urban and regional economics, regional science, city and regional planning, and management science. SCIENTIFIC GEOGRAPHY SERIES, Grant Ian Thrall, editor.

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  Analysis of Land Use Change: Theoretical and Modeling Approaches

  Helen Briassoulis

  Briassoulis, Helen. "Analysis of Land Use Change: Theoretical and Modeling Approaches". Web Book of Regional Science. Regional Research Institute, West Virginia University. Edited by Scott Loveridge, 2000: Randall Jackson, 2019.

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  Regional Development: Challenges, Methods, and Models

  Randall W. Jackson, Geoffrey J.D. Hewings, Serge Rey, and Nancy Lozano-Gracia

  Jackson, R., J.D. Hewings, S. Rey, and N. Lozano-Garcia, “Regional Development: Challenges, Methods, and Models”. Web Book of Regional Science. Regional Research Institute, West Virginia University. Edited by Randall Jackson, 2019.

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  Site Planning and Design

  Steven B. McBride

  McBride, Steven B. Site Planning and Design. Web Book of Regional Science. Regional Research Institute, West Virginia University. Edited by Scott Loveridge, 1999: Randall Jackson, 2019.