Second In-Class Examination
Don't necessarily select the "easiest-looking" questions. Select those which, in your judgment, give you the best and most balanced (incl. non-repetitive) opportunity to demonstrate your understanding of class-related concepts and tools.
Part I (closed books) Please answer three (3) of the following questions (10
minutes or points each): (1) Explain at least two of the ways in which Leontief coefficients can
be used as or changed into a multiplier. Start your answer by defining, in your own words, both
the "multiplier" and the "Leontief coefficient". Be sure you interpret the
meaning of the multipliers which you have selected. (2) Explain the difference between the "composition effect" (also
referred to as "proportionality effect") and the
"differential effect" (or "local-factor effect") associated with
employment shifts as identified by
shift/share analysis involving, for example, a state as a focal
region and the U.S. as the benchmark region. (3) An average propensity to consume, based on historic information, is
both wonderfully simple and affected by all the drawbacks of an average.
When should what kinds of (a) cohort-specific and (b) age-specific and
(c) type of household information be used to modify/differentiate an
average pcl for local economic forecasting purposes. (4) Identify, explain and assess the assumptions made when using the
location quotient for identifying the local economic base. (5) In network analysis, we identified high accessibility nodes via
matrix analysis. By analogy, what could be a "high-accessibility industry"
derived from input-output analysis, and how would you interpret the
significance of such "high accessibility"? (6) Identify how some particular "local knowledge"
of the behavioral, organizational and/or demographic facets associated
with any particular " direct requirement coefficient" (e.g. related to
your area of interests) may allow you to correct such a coefficient or
foresee its change in the future.
Part II: (open notebook)
Select one of these topics or questions for a 30-point/minute statement:
1. "Structural Change - Revisited": Demonstrate and discuss how your understanding of local/regional economic development has changed by supplementing our initial "compositional" and "population" perspective of change by an interdependence oriented interpretation of change.
2. Regions grow and decline on the basis of their exports and the
translation of export impacts through multiplier effects. Yet the world
as a whole (including the space station) does not (yet) export.
Discuss the viability of the export-base multiplier concept in light of the apparent significance of the size of the region.