Geography 207 / Wi 2000

Last Rites (March 13, 2000)

This final examination has two components:

Part I:Closed Books: 20 points/minutes, will be collected at 5:00)

Short answers: Please write on a separate piece of paper which will be collected at 5:00pm. Please do not forget your name. (20 points)

Select one concept each from four of the six groups . Identify the conceptual meaning of these "words" and briefly explain potential applications of the concept to issues in economic geography and/or identify factors which affect the magnitude of the associated variable, e.g. what affects the size of the threshold range or the multiplier?. Your specificity will be welcome!

1. (a) a specific "fertility rate" (of YOUR choice) OR
   (b) "cohort" (demographic analysis)

   
   

2. (a) "induced effects" (in Input-Output analysis) OR
   (b) "regional employment multiplier" (regional economic impact analysis)

   
   

3. (a) "bid price function" OR
   (b) "intensity of land use" (land use theory and analysis)

   
   

4. (a) "threshold range" OR
   (b) "range of a good (or service)" (central place theory/ geography of marketing)

   
   

5. (a) "urbanization economies" OR
   (b) "localization economies" (both: subcategories of agglomeration economies or benefits)

   
   

6. (a) "terms of trade" OR
   (b) "transfer pricing"

Our introductory class in Economic Geography was organized around a comprehensive outline distinguishing between three perspectives, namely "spatial distribution", "spatial interaction" and "economic change and regional development." In addition, we used a variety of "focal concepts" to connect different parts of the class and to reach some additional conceptual depth. Three of these "focal concepts" were:

1. Access
2. Flexibility
3. Import Substitution

Select ONE (1) of these concepts to compose a statement which gives you an opportunity to present as much of the breadth and depth of your understanding of economic geography as possible in this limited amount of time.

In other words,

1. provide an overview of the ability of the selected concept to link different parts of the class and thereby convey your understanding of the conceptual cohesiveness of economic geography, and
2. try to reach some depth by linking this concept (or an appropriately narrowed-down sub-concept) to a related or complementary concept of your choice.

It would be entirely appropriate to put yourself into the shoes of a "consultant" advising a non-profit, for-profit or governmental organization who is devising a strategy for her (his) client around one of these concepts and who would have to explain the differentiated richness of this concept before formulating a specific application or example.

A final point: As you know, your instructor is (very) human and thus loves to see you use ideas from class or the assigned readings. That does not mean, however, that you cannot put forward competing ideas for your economic-geographic arguments as long as you suggest why and in what way they are superior.

Bonus:

• Who is the present U.S. Secretary of Commerce?
• What did the FANTUS company do? (Since 1996 it is a division of Deloitte & Touche)

I would still very much appreciate if a few of you could get your Web site into "minimal shape", i.e. make sure your graphs all open (otherwise cut them out!); have headings (topics!) for all of your writings and pages; make use of subheadings; change your backgrounds so that your wisdom can actually be read easily and printed out; attach at least titles to the URLs appearing on your resource page (better yet: annotations) and make the URLs "clickable"; do some final editing of your writing, etc. etc. Remember, your pages are connected to the "real world" now.

Anything done by March 15th may still be reflected in your grade.