University of Washington                                                                                           Winter 1998
Geography 207:  Economic Geography
FIRST  HOUR  TEST
 
 

Answer each of the following 50 questions by marking the appropriate spaces on your machine-gradeable forms.  A few questions may require more than one response:  if so, the question says that.  You have 50 minutes.
 

1.  Which of the following is the subject matter of economic geography?
a) distributions of physical, social, and human-built components of the earth, their determinants, and their relationships
b) natural-resource extraction and use
c) the production, consumption, and distribution of goods, services and relationships that are explicitly traded for one another or for currency
d) the social and political institutions and conventions that underlie economic activity (e.g., the ownership of property, labor, and capital), and how these institutions and conventions determine the distribution of commodities among human societies
e) the spatial organization and distribution of economic activity, the use of the world’s resources, and the distribution and expansion of the world economy

2.  Which of the following is the subject matter of economics?
a) distributions of physical, social, and human-built components of the earth, their determinants, and their relationships
b) natural-resource extraction and use
c) the production, consumption, and distribution of goods, services and relationships that are explicitly traded for one another or for currency
d) the social and political institutions and conventions that underlie economic activity (e.g., the ownership of property, labor, and capital), and how these institutions and conventions determine the distribution of commodities among human societies
e) the spatial organization and distribution of economic activity, the use of the world’s resources, and the distribution and expansion of the world economy
 

3.  Which of the following best exemplifies an economic-geographic approach to research — for example, in the case we pursued in class, of hog farming in North Carolina?
a) ask a sample of Americans about their preferences for pork versus other foods
b) compare the growth rates in the national, state, and sub-state areas, to create more specific questions about the process of growth
c) investigate changes in the supply of and demand for pork
d) investigate the policy changes in North Carolina that might increase hog production
e) relate the annual production of hogs in North Carolina to year-by-year changes in potentially important influences on hog production (policy, price, advertising campaigns, etc.)

4.  Look at Figure 1.  The line that is described by points A and C has a slope
a)  < 0
b)  = 0
c)  > 0

5.  If  Figure 1 is a typical supply/demand graph, which line should be the supply curve?
a)  AB
b)  AC
c)  BC
d)  CQ1
e)  P2C

6.  If  Figure 1 is a typical supply/demand graph, why does AC slope downward?
a)  Demand falls to meet supply.
b)  It costs less to produce more.
c)  It costs less per unit to produce less.
d)  It costs more to produce more.
e)  Purchasers buy more of a commodity if its price is lower.

7.  If  Figure 1 is a typical supply/demand graph, why does BC slope upward?
a)  Demand falls to meet supply.
b)  It costs less to produce more.
c)  It costs less per unit to produce less.
d)  It costs more to produce more.
e)  Purchasers buy more of a commodity if its price is lower.

8.  Which of the following is not a globalizing element in the world economy?
a) environmental impacts of large-scale human and natural change
b) financial capital
c) physical infrastructure
d) popular culture
 
9.  In the circular flow of capitalist production and consumption, what are the two flows from consumers to producers?  (Mark two responses).
a) finished products
b) intermediate products
c) money in return for production factors
d) money in return for products
e) the rights to use production factors

10.  In the circular flow of capitalist production and consumption, what are the two flows from producers to consumers?  (Mark two responses).
a) finished products
b) intermediate products
c) money in return for production factors
d) money in return for products
e) the rights to use production factors

11.  In accounting for Gross Domestic Product (or the total income of any territorial unit), which of the following is the set of components used?
a) exports, government expenditure, imports, private consumption, private investment
b) government reserves, value of physical infrastructure, private financial assets
c) investment income, self-employment income, wage and salary income
d) money supply, present value of natural resources, value of physical infrastructure

12-15.  The basic model for estimating interaction (I) between any two places i and j can be expressed as a function of the populations of the places and the distance between them:

Iij  =  k Pi Pj dij-a

12.  What’s the role of k?
a) It eliminates the need to account for the precise populations of the places on a given date.
b) It provides the appropriate scale of magnitude for the flows as a function of population and distance, different for each kind of interaction
c) It’s a “plug figure” to ensure that Pi always equals Pj.
d) It reduces the impact of long distances on interaction.
e) It translates units of distance to monetary values

13.  Why do we multiply Pi and Pj, rather than adding them?
a) because the number of potential interactions multiplies with the number of potential interactors in each place
b) because the trade area of place i increases with the trade area of place j
c) to allow easier estimation of the parameters
d) to represent progressive declines in the cost of transportation over time
e) to yield the appropriate units (population-squared)

14.  How would you interpret a?
a) It’s a measure of how the cost of interaction increases with distance.
b) It’s a measure of the strength of the interaction system.
c) It’s a scaling factor to relate a particular type of interaction to population size.
d) It’s the Reilly constant.

15.  If you had values for k and a for a model of airline passengers per year between Seattle and other cities across the U.S., how might this information be useful?
a) to check the accuracy of the data on airline passengers between Seattle and other cities in the U.S.
b) to determine the viability of a new airport between Seattle and the nearest city to its north.
c) to estimate the break point between the market area of Seattle and its nearest cities
d) to predict the amount of airline traffic from Seattle as a function of population growth in Seattle and other cities
e) to predict the growth of Seattle as a function of future airline traffic
 

16.  To calculate the approximate doubling time of a population,
a) divide the population’s percentage growth rate by 70%
b) divide 70% by the population’s percentage growth rate
c) divide the current population by the percentage population growth rate
d) divide the current population by the square root of 2
e) multiply the population’s percentage growth rate by 0.7

17.  If the world maintained its 1.6 percentage growth rate, when would its current population of 6 billion reach 12 billion?
a)    12 years
b)    25 years
c)    43 years
d)  123 years

18.  What was the approximate population of the U.S. in 1995?
a)       30 million
b)     263 million
c)     970 million
d)  1,238 million

19.  What are the components of population change?
a) births and deaths
b) births, deaths, inmigration, outmigration
c) births, deaths, legal inmigration, outmigration
d) births, inmigration, outmigration, and natural increase
e) births and net migration

20.  What determines the number of births in a population?
a) the fertility rate of the female population
b) the fertility rate of the female population and the number of women of child-bearing age
c) the number and age of out-migrants
d) the number of births in the previous period
e) the ratio between female in-migrants and female out-migrants

21.  Which statement best describes the first stage of the demographic transition?
a) falling birth rates and falling death rates
b) high birth rates and falling death rates
c) high birth rates and high death rates
d) low birth rates and low death rates
e) rising birth rates and high death rates

22.  Which statement best describes the third stage of the demographic transition?
a) falling birth rates and falling death rates
b) high birth rates and falling death rates
c) high birth rates and high death rates
d) low birth rates and low death rates
e) rising birth rates and high death rates

23.  What causes the decline of birth rates over the demographic transition?
a) cultural and economic change
b) outmigration
c) the passage of time
d) public-health improvements

24.  What causes the decline of death rates over the demographic transition?
a) cultural and economic change
b) outmigration
c) the passage of time
d) public-health improvements

25.  What’s the opportunity cost of a product, resource, or service?
a) the cost of the physical inputs used to produce it
b) the cost of producing it
c) the value of the best alternative use of the resources used to produce or extract it
d) the value of the capital resources allocated to the product, service, or resource
e) the value of the direct and indirect labor used to produce or extract it

26.  What’s the marginal cost of an item?
a) the average cost of production
b) the average revenue received for the item
c) the cost of producing a little more of it
d) the cost of producing it
e) the selling price under a monopoly

27.  What’s the marginal revenue of an item?
a) the average price
b) the item’s price minus the costs of production
c) the price that would be received for the next item sold
d) the total sales of the producer
e) the total sales of the producer divided by the average price at which the goods are sold

28.  Figures 2-5 are crude schematics of population pyramids.  Which one portrays a developing country that is in the third stage of the demographic transition?
a) Figure 2
b) Figure 3
c) Figure 4
d) Figure 5

29.  Figures 2-5 are crude schematics of population pyramids.  Which one portrays a developed country that is in the fourth stage of the demographic transition?
a) Figure 2
b) Figure 3
c) Figure 4
d) Figure 5

30.  Figures 2-5 are crude schematics of population pyramids.  Which one portrays a country that is facing negative rates of natural increase?
a) Figure 2
b) Figure 3
c) Figure 4
d) Figure 5

31.  What’s the impact of a high dependency ratio on economic development?
a) It generally hastens the territory’s progress through the demographic transition.
b) It implies that the birth rate will fall, reducing the pressure of population growth.
c) It reduces the ability of the economically productive population to invest financial and physical-capital resources for the future.
d) The large number of working people can support a high standard of living.

32.  The amount of a renewable resource that is available for use without jeopardizing its availability for future use:
a) maximum sustainable yield
b) mineral resource
c) projected reserve
d) reserve
e) stock resource

33.  The amount of a natural resource that is estimated for use at future prices and with future technologies:
a) maximum sustainable yield
b) mineral resource
c) projected reserve
d) reserve
e) stock resource

34.  Which of the following is not a major part of the world’s current hunger problems?
a) government policies (land or personal taxation;  large-scale irrigation projects;  major transportation infrastructure) that reduce subsistence agriculture in favor of commodity agriculture for world markets (for foreign exchange to repay debt or invest in other sectors (such as the military))
b) ineffective incomes to purchase food as commodity
c) inefficient marketing and distribution systems:  spoilage, speculation, poor localized transportation, and war
d) insufficient global supply of food for the burgeoning global population
e) land-tenure distribution that doesn’t allow sufficient subsistence cropping

35.  Which transport mode has the highest variable (“line-haul”) costs?
a) air
b) railroads
c) surface roads
d) water

36.  Which transport mode has the lowest variable (“line-haul”) costs?
a) air
b) railroads
c) surface roads
d) water
 
 

37-39.  In Figure 6, the height of lines BH and FI represent the production costs at points B and F, respectively, for the production of exactly the same item.  The sloped lines represent the costs of transporting the item from the point of production to the point of consumption.

37.  With F.O.B. pricing, a purchaser at which of the following points would purchase from Producer F?
a)  A
b)  B
c)  C
d)  D
e)  E

38.  With F.O.B. pricing, where’s the boundary between the market areas for Producers B and F?
a)  at the far left of the diagram
b)  C
c)  D
d)  There is no clear boundary between their market areas.
e)  We can’t tell until we know the relative populations at points B and F.

39.  With uniform-delivered pricing, where’s the boundary between the market areas for Producers B and F?
a)  at the far left of the diagram
b)  C
c)  D
d)  There is no clear boundary between their market areas.
e)  We can’t tell until we know the relative populations at points B and F.

40-42.  Figure 7 portrays five different transportation configurations, each one with five places (or vertices, in the terms of network theory) and some number of direct links (or edges, in terms of network theory).

40.  Which network has the highest beta value, where beta is the number of edges divided by the number of vertices?
a)  A
b)  B
c)  C
d)  D
e)  E

41.  Which network would be best for a transportation mode that has low right-of-way costs and high variable (or line-haul) costs?
 a)  A
b)  B
c)  C
d)  D
e)  E
 
42.  Which network allows for two ways to get from each vertex to any other?
a)  A
b)  B
c)  C
d)  D
e)  E

43.  What is “complementarity” as a basis for spatial interaction?
a) lack of intervening opportunity
b) populations that have cultural values in common
c) possibility of transport a given item at a cost that is less than the opportunity cost of not transporting it
d) surplus in one place and deficit in another
e) two angles that equal 180 degrees when added together

44.  What is “transferability” as a basis for spatial interaction?
a) lack of intervening opportunity
b) populations that have cultural values in common
c) possibility of transport a given item at a cost that is less than the opportunity cost of not transporting it
d) surplus in one place and deficit in another
e) two angles that equal 180 degrees when added together
 

45-46.  Figure 8 is a diagram of market areas (on the horizontal axis) as a function of the relative population (on the vertical axis) of two metropolitan areas, at points C and G.

45.  According to this diagram, where is the northern boundary of C’s market area?
a)  A
b)  B
c)  D
d)  E
e)  I

46.  According to this diagram, where is the southern boundary of G’s market area?
a)  A
b)  B
c)  D
d)  E
e)  I

47.  As the cost (and other barriers, such as legal barriers) of transportation decreases between two places, which of the following is not sure to follow?
a) increased economic specialization of each place
b) increased interaction between the places
c) increased population in each place
d) increased productivity in the combined economies of the two places
e) The value of a resource that is scarce in place A and plentiful in place B will decline in the place A.

48.  The Cascade Mountains divide the densely populated Puget Sound area (which includes Seattle) from eastern Washington.  Asparagus grows plentifully — even wild — in eastern Washington, but not in the Puget Sound area.  What probably happened to the price of asparagus in eastern Washington when Interstate 90 was opened across the mountains?
a)  decreased
b)  increased

49.  Which of the following is not a rationale for government regulation of privately-owned and -operated transportation, communications, and utilities?
a) difficulty of service purchasers to determine safety a priori, depressing demand and/or reducing safety
b) 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
c) increasing the international competitiveness of the territory’s transportation, communications, or utilities system(s)
d) 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

50.  How should continued improvements in transportation and communications affect the world’s economic geography?
a) increase international price differentials for natural and human resources
b) increase the similarity of economic activity and structures across all places
c) increase the specialization and interaction of all places
d) reduce the amount of competition between producers of the same product



FIGURES