Please sign your name above. Then, fill in your name and number on your ScanTron form. Mark one circle on the form for each of the 40 questions below, corresponding to the best answer listed. Turn in both this test and your form. The test is worth 15 points toward the quarter’s total of 100 points. You have 50 minutes.

1. What is "complementarity" as a basis for spatial interaction?

1. lack of intervening opportunity
2. populations that have cultural values in common
3. possibility of transporting a given item at a cost that is less than the opportunity cost of not transporting it
4. surplus in one place and deficit in another
5. two angles that equal 180 degrees when added together

1. lack of intervening opportunity
2. populations that have cultural values in common
3. possibility of transporting a given item at a cost that is less than the opportunity cost of not transporting it
4. surplus in one place and deficit in another
5. two angles that equal 180 degrees when added together

1. A constant is necessary to take us from population units to cost units.
2. It provides the appropriate scale of magnitude for the flows as a function of population and distance, different for each kind of interaction
3. k measures the connectivity of the transport network.
4. It reduces the impact of long distances on interaction.

1. because the number of potential interactions multiplies with the number of potential interactors in each place
2. because the trade area of place i increases with the trade area of place j
3. to allow easier estimation of the parameters
4. to represent progressive declines in the cost of transportation over time
5. to yield the appropriate units (population-squared)

1. It’s a measure of how the cost of interaction increases with distance.
2. It’s a measure of the strength of the interaction system.
3. It’s a scaling factor to relate a particular type of interaction to population size.
4. It’s the Reilly constant.
5. a is indexed to 1; its maximum value is 1.0.

1. The actual impact of distance is estimated by subtracting a from d_ij.
2. The larger the a , the greater the interaction.
3. The natural logarithm provides a better estimate of the friction of distance.
4. This is the same as dividing by d_ij^a .

1. to forecast the amount of migration into Seattle, per year.
2. to determine the viability of a new airport between Seattle and the nearest city to its north.
3. to estimate the break point between the market area of Seattle and its nearest cities
4. to predict the amount of future airline traffic from Seattle as a function of population growth in Seattle and other cities
5. to predict the growth of Seattle as a function of future airline traffic

1. By comparing the value of k for the different cities, you could tell which city is closest to Seattle.
2. The value of a indicates the expected demand for airline flights to/from Seattle.
3. You could estimate the amount of demand for a flight between Seattle and a specific city that doesn’t currently have direct flights to/from Seattle.
4. You could estimate the amount of rail traffic between Seattle and the other cities.

1. air
2. railroads
3. surface roads
4. ocean shipping

1. air
2. railroads
3. surface roads
4. ocean shipping

1. complementarity
2. economies of scale in production
3. economies of scale in transportation
4. fixed costs of production
5. opportunity costs of the time spent in transport

12. What is the meaning of the slope of the sloped lines (the lines that are neither vertical nor horizontal)?

1. The greater the slope, the smaller the profit (expressed as a percentage of total revenue) that each producer makes.
2. The slope measures the marginal cost of producing another unit of the item.
3. The slope measures the marginal revenue received for producing (and selling) an additional unit of the item.
4. The slope measures the proportion that transportation cost represents in the total price of the item.
5. The slope measures the rate at which the transportation costs for a shipment increase as the distance between the point of production and the point of consumption increases.

1. B
2. F

17. Which network has the highest beta value, where beta is the number of edges divided by the number of vertices?

1. increased economic specialization of each place
2. increased interaction between the places
3. increased population in each place
4. increased productivity in the combined economies of the two places
5. The value of a resource that is scarce in place A and plentiful in place B will decline in place A.

1. because it’s difficult to charge people individually for the use of some facilities (such as small, surface roads)
2. to earn extra tax revenues
3. to insure that peripheral places remain accessible at viable prices, through cross subsidies in the rates charged to central versus peripheral customers
4. to insure the transport and communications centrality of the center of government
5. to reduce the transportation services to peripheral places

1. consolidation of passenger and freight carriers, esp. in long-distance markets; some increase in competition in localized areas and specialized markets
2. declining demand for transportation and communication, in proportion to the size of the economy
3. occasional instability and "price wars" as prices are discounted to approach the marginal cost of an additional passenger or package
4. Price and on-time competition replaces non-price competition (e.g., airline food); substantially reduced prices.
5. reduced transportation service to peripheral places

1. difficulty of service purchasers to determine safety a priori, depressing demand and/or reducing safety
2. high fixed costs and low MC (up to the capacity constraint) leads to a natural monopoly (a firm will only undertake the fixed costs if it has a monopoly in the provision of the service — think of water, local telephone, local natural-gas, cable-TV service); the pricing policies of a monopolist need government review
3. increasing the interaction among large market centers.
4. insure provision of a minimal level of service to small, potentially unprofitable places, by mandating service in return for higher prices charged on routes facing more demand

1. difficulty of excludability (esp. for roads other than limited-access)
2. high fixed costs, which would deter private investment in the less-traveled routes
3. increasing density of population in major urban areas
4. maintaining territorial cohesion (whatever the level of government)

1. increase international price differentials for natural and human resources
2. increase the similarity of economic activity and structures across all places
3. increase the specialization and interaction of all places
4. reduce the amount of competition between producers of the same product

1. activities for which the cost of transportation is not very important in determining optimal location
2. benefits (or costs) of a firm’s actions that are not captured (or borne) by the firm that is responsible for them
3. exports of goods or services from the region
4. information that is useful to production
5. production that occurs outside of firms

1. agglomeration
2. congestion
3. easier flow of information
4. shared infrastructure
5. the presence of a labor force trained in your industry

1. increases in demand as the price of production falls
2. increases in the marginal cost of production
3. reductions in unit costs of production as a result of larger designed scale of output within the firm
4. reductions in unit costs of production as a result of proximity or density of economic activity
5. the relationship between scale and transport costs

1. the degree of external economies entailed in the production of the good or service
2. the location of the central place relative to the source of the good or service
3. the size of the hinterland required to contain enough people to support the provision of the good or service
4. the scarcity of the good or service
5. the source of the good or service

1. The marketing principle does not allow for enough central places to satisfy demand.
2. The traffic principle calls for direct transport routes between two central places of a given order to pass through a central place of the next lower order.
3. The traffic principle recognizes the importance of transport-intensive, manufacturing activity to the location of cities.
4. The traffic principle results in fewer lower-order places per higher order place, which is closer to reality.

1. Larger shopping centers draw people from longer distances.
2. The attractiveness of a shopping center declines with its distance from the shopper.
3. The primary market areas of two competing centers will meet closer to the larger center.
4. The size of a primary market area increases with the size of the market center.

In the second exercise, you estimated the amount of retail sales you’d get in a supermarket at a particular location j, by allowing the computer to compute the sales that the store should get from customers in each of several zones i. You told the computer the total household income in each zone, and the proportion of total income spent on groceries. The computer computed the distance from each i to j, and the consequent level of sales (S) expected from all the zones in the market area of the supermarket, as
 

  where C_i = (household income in i) (proportion of income spent on groceries).

36. If the population of the city increases evenly across the city, what should happen to the sales you expect in your store?

1. It decreases.
2. It increases.

1. increase the attractiveness or uniqueness of your store
2. increase traffic congestion in the city
3. locate your store closer to the market center
4. reduce traffic congestion in the city

1. the friction of distance
2. the maximum number of people who could shop at your store
3. the proportion of income that households spend on groceries
4. the total size of the market area, in dollars spent on groceries
5. your share of the market that could potentially come to your store

40. According to this diagram, where is the northern boundary of C’s primary market area?