The material covered by class presentations, readings and handouts can be categorized under 8 major headings. One (or more) example question will be attached to each category. Each of you should select 3 questions for individual answers and subsequent group discussions. (The remaining questions should also be helpful for your midterm preparations):

1. Geography 207: Which areas and topics covered in Stutz would you expect to be most relevant for Geography 350?

2. Models: What is a model? Why do we need models in regional economic analysis?

3. Regions: We have distinguished between homogeneous and functional regions. For what kinds of questions would we tend to make analytical use of these two types of regions, respectively.

4. Location Quotient: You are presently involved in calculating and assessing location quotients for your county. As you probably have realized already, the selection of benchmark regions and employment classifications will affect the location quotient results. Can you say something about how you expect the degree of aggregation of your employment categories to affect the size of the location quotient (ceteris paribus or "all other things being equal")

5. Population: Population pyramids not just depict age and sex composition of a population at a point in time, but also permit dynamic insights about the fact that (usually 5-year) birth cohorts travel together through their life stages. What kinds of qualitative or quantitative questions are regional analysts interested in when focusing on
   1. cohorts and
   2. life stages?

6. Migration (Goetz-reading): Migration across county boundaries affects (impacts) economic development processes in many different ways. Identify major categories of such impacts.

7. Structure and Structural Change: "Identifying 'structure' permits us to control and manage complexity in regional analysis". Explain and discuss!

8. Theory
   • Theory I: What is meant by the (originally inductively derived) Engel's Law? Do you know of any simple explanations for this empirically observed regularity?

   • Theory II: Services (Tertiary activities): Suggest some further sub-divisions for service activities which today employ between 65 and 80% of the labor force in industrialized countries. Do you have any suggestions why your sub-divisions might be important for the understanding of regional economies and appropriate for regional economic analysis.

   • Theory III: Why do some economic activities seek the company of the same or different activities in close proximity while others do not? [Resources]