BOOKREVIEWS
SPATIAL INTERACTION THEORY and PLANNING MODELS edited by Anders Karlqvist, Lars Lundqvist, Folke Snickers, and J//rgen W. Weibull. North-Holland Publishing Company, Studies in Regional Science and Urban Economics, Vol. 3, 1978, p p . X , 388. Cloth $42.25. The book is a collection of papers delivered at the international scientific conference held in Bastad, Sweden, August 29-31, 1977. The conference was organized with the thought to present and discuss economic and geographical theories and models based on various aspects of the concepts of spatial interaction. The organizers' aim was to make the presentation and discussion cover not only purely theoretical matters but problems concerning the usefulness and application of the theory in planning as well. Worth-while underlining is the selection of authors invited to deliver their papers at the conference. This choice testifies to the organizers' care to ensure the conference's high level. Spatial interaction is a fundamental problem of regional science. The choices, decisions, and behavior of the socio-economic space are revealed in spatial interaction. Thus, they constitute the essential elements of the subject within this field of science. By choosing spatial interaction as the conference subject the organizers have brought into prominence one of the leading themes of regional science. It's difficult to expect that the collection of papers presented at one conference will systematically cover the whole research area taken as the conference subject. Neither is it easy to keep the papers coherent and consistent in depicting this subject. Everybody who has ever organized scientific conferences knows this fact. Difficulties of this sort were also encountered by the organizers of the conference in Bastad. However, thanks to the carefully considered organization of the book's contents those difficulties have been partly overcome. The book consists of two parts. The theoretical aspects of spatial interaction have been presented in the first part, in the second, the attempts to apply theoretical models in forecasting and planning. The content of the first part develops from micro-oriented static theories to the models oriented towards macro-scale and dynamics. The contents of the second part range from projection and evaluation of urban land use to multiobjective urban and regional planning. The introductory article, preceding the two parts was written by A. Karlqvist. The author presented the essential ideas underlying the theoretical concepts and models proposed by various speakers. The article as a kind of guide helps to highlight the relationships between the particular papers, to proceed from one paper to another, and to read the book. Apart from that, reading of this book requires that the reader possess not only a good knowledge of contemporary, theoretical concepts of regional science but mathematical preparation as well. Although the book isn't a systematic presentation of spatial interaction problems, it gives, through its 15 papers, one of the fullest presentations so far in the literature. In this way the aim of the organizers of the conference has been accomplished. One of the latest research trends in regional science lies in a dynamic treatment of the problems considered so far to be statistic. This trend is also revealed in the book. In my opinion the main contribution of the book to the development of regional science consists in the enrichment of spatial models and 86
theories by a dynamic dimension. In this way theories and models become fuller and b e t t e r reveal reality. The book offers various possibilities to give the spatial theories and models a dynamie character: from including dynamics in the static model of a city and thus making it a pseudo-dynamic model (M. Batty), by the extension of Markov's model on certain memory elements (F. Snickars), including sudden changes (the appearance of new cities) in the system of central places (A. Wilson), making the entropy maximizing model more general (M. J. Webber), to the application of general relativity and the concept of active space-time (W. Isard and P. Liossatos). The article by W. Isard and P. Liossatos is a signal of a new scientific work to be published within the same publication series as the reviewed book. Dynamics of spatial systems is not only the subject of t h eo r et i cal eonsiderations. Recently it has been t r e a te d in a more and more specific way. New directions in the estimation of spatio-temporal models presented in the book are the symptoms of this process (L. Hordijk and P. Nijkamp). Only one way of construction and expressing theories, i.e., modelling, is deeidedly predominant in the book, the work of T. E. Smith being an exception. The author has implicitly assumed that a theory can be created not only by revealing new aspects of reality and expressing them in the form of new models but also by pointing out relations between already known t h eo r et i cal concepts. In his paper he showed that the behavior depicted in the gravity model is in accordance with the efficiency principle. According to this principle, individuals exhibit distance-aversion behavior, i.e., in otherwise equal conditions they make shorter trips rather than longer. The authors of this book treat spatial interaction broadly and they include in it problems of search, choice and behavior of socio-economic subjects. A reader interested in this extended approach will find in this book considerations concerning the stopping criteria in search behavior (J. W. Weibull), choice of location of apartment in the situation when the number of alternatives is impractically large and when the presence of similarities between alternatives invalidates the usefulness of the model applied so far (D. McFadden), compromise choices (P. Nijkamp), role of the consumer in a longer time erspective and the relevant changes of existing consumer theory (A. E. ndersson), integration of the concepts of accessibility, spatial interaction and location surplus within a theory of rational choice (H. Williams, and M. Senior). Some of the spatial interaction aspects such as interdependence and continuity of events over time are too complex to be treated within the rationality paradigm and choice theory. This remark served A. Karlqvist as a starting point to give some thought to the alternative approach to the interaction system, going beyond the stereotype assumptions of rational choice theory. This alternative is perceived in T. Hagerstrand's suggestions in his timebudget theory. A. J. Scott proposes still another alternative in the treatment of spatial interaction. Using the notion apparatus rarely met in western scientific literature the author presents the impact of urban transportation on income apportionment into profits, wages and rents. Authors of the papers included in the second part of the book try to give their models an operational character and reveal tile possibilities of their application in urban and regional planning (location of enterprises, land-use, transport and housing). Planning as a separate subject of research appears in the two papers by L. Lundqvist, A. Broadbent and R. Barras. 87
Lundqvist ponders over the essence and purposes of urban planning. He comes to the conclusion that planning is not simply finding specific decisions concerning behavior and development of individuals and organizations. Its aim should consist in creating the framework of behavior and development, particularly in creating opportunities for individuals and freedom of action for organizations. Hence, urban planning should deal with structures and as such should have a perspective character. Broadbend and Barras present techniques used in planning in the United Kingdom. There appears to be mutual interaction between the scientists building up models and specialists who apply them in planning. This interaction has features of a learning process. In their conclusion the authors formulate a remark which very revelantly reveals the relations between theoretical modelling and practical planning. When we compare the present models and plans tile conclusions are disappointing. It's more proper to compare present planning with the models elaborated some years earlier. Doubtless to say the models developed some years ago have a significant influence on the plans made at present. Hence, there is a certain shift in time in the relation between models and plans, but the interaction is unquestionable. Ryszard Domanski Poznan School of Economics, Poland.
THE CHINESE ECONOMY: PROBLEMS AND POLICIES BY Jan S. Prybyla. University of South Carolina Press, 1978, pp. xiii, 258. Cloth $14.95; Paper $5.95. The accomplishments of the Chinese economy during the last two decades have been remarkable. It has fed, housed, clothed, and kept in good health over one-fourth of humanity and still achieved around a 10 percent annual rate of economic growth from 1966 to 1975. All of these formidable tasks have been achieved without any outside assistance, based solely on indigenous resources. We have much to learn from this "Chinese model" of economic growth which is quite different from either the Western mode] or those of the Soviet block socialistic countries. Professor Prybyla's new book, The Chinese Economy: Problems and Policies, is therefore a timely and welcomed addition to our stock of knowledge on the subject. The Chinese Economy: Problems and Policies describes the strengths and weaknesses of the Chinese economic system based on the detailed analysis of major sectors of the Chinese economy--population, agriculture, industry, money and banking, transportation and communications, trade, and public health and education. The author has succeeded in presenting an objective and balanced picture of the Chinese economy without exaggerating the virtues or faults of the Chinese ecor~omic system. The assessments of the strengths and weaknesses of the Chinese model are done with "rational detachment," frequently comparing it with the Soviet model and also providing historical backgrounds. The post-liberation Chinese economy can be divided into three major periods: reconstruction and transformation to a socialistic economy (1949-1953), experimentation with the centralized Soviet type of economic system (19531957), and decentralization of planning and management of tile economy based on the unique "Chinese model" (1957-present). The Chinese economy since 1957 could be further subdivided into five major periods: communization of social 88
relations during the period of the "Great Leap Forward" (1958-1960), the post "Great L e a p Forward" recession and recovery (1960-1965), the period of "Cultural Revolution" (1966-1969), the post "Cultural Revolution" recovery (1970-1976), and the post Mao period of modernization drive (1977-present). The book describes the problems which the Chinese economy encountered during these periods of changing political and economic tides and the Chinese solutions employed to alleviate the problems. The author writes that in spite of the appearance of their apparent irrationality to the Westerners' eyes, the movements such as the "Great Leap Forward" and "Cultural Revolution" were initiated in attempts to correct the short-comings brought on by the previous policies. For example, the maximum employment of indigenousresources was the goal of the "Great Leap Forward" after the withdrawal of Soviet technicians, whereas the reduction of urban unemploymentand underemploymentproduced by the "elitist" educational system was one of the goals of the "Cultural Revolution." In assessing the major sectors of the Chinese economy, the book provides the followingpoints: Population (Chapter 2) policy is concerned with reducing the overall population growth under 1 percent or less per annum with birth control. It is also concerned with reducing the urban population growth through various policies, including the well publicized policy of forced urban-rural sending down of urban educated youth. The policy with respect to minority nationalities is a combination of forceful suppression and long-term cultural assimilation. Also, a large scale settlement of the Han population into minority nationality regions such as Mongolia is carried out. The unique feature of the "Chinese model" in contrast to the "Soviet model" is the high priority accorded to the agricultural sector (Chapter 3) by the Chinese planners. The neglect and exploitation of the agricultural sector in favor of heavy industrial sectors, which had characterized the early Soviet economic development policy, is rejected by the Chinese. Instead, a balanced growth utilizing both traditional and intermediate agricultural technology has been achieved and the establishment of self-sufficient production units such as rural commune are encouraged. Industry (Chapters 4 and 5), the development of rural, small and medium scale industries using intermediate technology has been carried out since 1961 after the withdrawl of the Soviet technicians. Unlike the Soviet practice, genuine two-way consultations seem to take place in assigning production targets and planning implementation. Labor intensive methods of production are utilized but fairly sophisticated capital equipments are also used wherever possible, especially after 1976. Advancedtechnological know-how is diffused and adopted even by the smaller units whenever possible at the grass roots level through the interaction of workers and experts. The primary goal of the spatial distribution policy for industry has been the geographical dispersal of industry away from the more developed cities of the coastal areas. Such a policy was carried out: (1) to correct the colonial pattern of pre-communist spatial economy, (2) to establish new economic and industrial centers closer to raw materials and consumer markets, (3) to maintain a balance between interregional self-sufficiency and interregional specialization, (4) to enhance national security, and (5) to develop medium and small cities in the interior rather than large cities on the coast. The author mentionsthat a fairly sophisticated economic planningis carried out by the Chinese planners employing such techniques as linear programming and disaggregated input-output models. Domesticallydesigned and manufactured computers are also used in the planningprocess since 1965. It appears, however, 89
that flexible plans are carried out based on constant review and two-way consultations between planners and production units. Money and Banking (Chapter 6) is primarily subordinated to physical plans. This is achieved by reducing the managerial extra plan options by minimum liquidity allowance. All interenterprise transactions are handled by transfers in the bank's books and all profits are transmitted to the authorities accounts held by the bank. The contribution of Domestic and Foreign Trade (Chapter 8) to the economic growth is appreciated by the Chinese planners. UnlikeSoviet block countries, a large number of retail trading points are established in China to distribute c o n s u m e r goods and to m i n i m i z e delays in distributing consumer goods. However, poverty as an absolute virtue was emphasized, especially during the period of the "Cultural Revolution," to refrain and suppress non-legitimate wants (e.g., luxurious consumer goods) before they emerge in the form of market demand. If non-legitimate wants emerge despite the educational effort, the methods of peer group pressures, high prices, and unavailability of consumer credit are employed to rectify the situation. The foreign trade is recognized, especially by the post Mao leaders, as a means of modernizing the Chinese economy. In spite of their relative backwardness as compared with industrially advanced Western countries, China made significant improvements since 1949 in such areas as Transportation and Communications (Chapter 7) and Public Health and Education (Chapter 9). The book contains the latest statistics and policies in these sectors. The book contains comprehensive lists of suggested reading materials after each chapter. These reading materials are not only comprehensive but also up-to-date which include publications as recent as 1977. The actual and possible policy changes after Mao's death, along with Summary and Prospects (Chapter 10), are also discussed in the book. The Chinese Economy: Problemsand Policies by Jan Prybyla definitely represents a significant contribution to our knowledge on the often neglected subject. One area where the book does not provide sufficient attention in relation to its importance is China's foreign trade policy, especially after Mao's death. In view of its significance in the current modernization drive of the Chinese economy, the changes in foreign trade policies, especially its expected potential role in the future Chinese economic development, deserve more discussion and analysis than is contained in the book. In spite of such deficiencies and any ideological distaste of the socialistic system, planners, political scientists and regional scientists should benefit greatly from reading the book and exposing themselves to the alternative ideas and suggested solutions based on the Chinese experience. Richard Y. P. Joun State of Hawaii Department of Planning, USA TRANSPORTATION IN EASTERN EUROPE--EMPIRICAL FINDINGSby Bogdan Mieczkowski. Columbia University Press, 1978, pp. 221. $14.50. This book presents an overall picture of Transportation in Eastern Europe and is the first English language publication to do so. While entirely based on officially published data, the author uses his critical judgment throughout. His 90
main conclusions may be summarized in his own words: While the present study has not dealt with the quality of transport services, their statistical growth in terms of tons transported or ton/kilometers transported has been impressive.... Our regression analysis showed that the best fit can be obtained between transport and national income, although the indexes of net value added in industry, construction, and foreign trade turnover have also high coefficients of codetermination with transport .... Transport uses up a substantial portion of national resources .... The cost of transport to its users is not proportional to the social cost of transport as between different transport modes, thus resulting in some transport decisions that are irrational from the point of view of society (p. 190). Finally, the important international implication of transport has been discussed.... The East European countries have made decisive steps to link their national transport systems with those of other countries, especially of those of the Comecon group (p. 191). East European transport operates w i t h little or no excess capacity .... Consequently, whenever the demand for transport services exceeds the level that planners thought likely, bottlenecks appear or intensify .... This particular shortfall of transport services imposed severe inconveniences on the public, but by and large it does not seem to have retarded the surge in economic growth .... The question is whether the growth of transport services has taken place at an exorbitant cost and whether the transport sector functions at too high a cost, that is in comparison with countries in the West (p. 191). The question is on the whole affirmed. The book contains a wealth of detailed observations which make it interesting reading not only for specialists. Martin Beckmann Brown University, USA and Technische Universitaed, Munchen, Germany
REGIONAL-NATIONAL ECONOMETRIC MODELING: WITH AN APPLICATION TO THE ITALIAN ECONOMY edited by Murray Brown, Maurizio de Palma, and Bruno Ferrara. Pion Limited (Academic Press, Inc.), 1978, pp. 203. Cloth $17.50. The papers presented in this volume focus on a joint modelling effort between members of Ii Centro di Studi e Piani Economici of Rome and the Department of Economics at the State University of New York at Buffalo. The original purpose of the study was to construct a regional-national econometric model capable of explaining the formulation, use, and distribution of the components of value added (by sector and region). Moreover,the model was 91
intended to be useful for a variety of long and short-run policy purposes in the Italian economy. The regional econometric modelling method employed contrasts with the method advocated by Klein(1969) and successfully employed by Glickman (1977). The approach presented in this study requires the construction of a separate mode] for each of the regions that comprise the national economy. Each regional model is related to every other model by linking relationships and by some national variables. By aggregating the regional models within a national accounts framework, consistency is forced upon the system. Such a procedure allows for a two-way feedback, from the regional to the national and from the national to the regional, in contrast to primary oneway causality in the Klein model in which regional models are "driven" by a national model. Unfortunately, the volume does not present the results of a completed regional-national econometric model. In spite of its incomplete nature, however, the volume does present a valuable guide to the specification of such a model. The individual chapters discussing various components of the overall model are presented in the hope that certain aspects of the individual studies can be profitably employed for partial policy problems. In Chapter 1, written by M. Brown, M. Di Palma, and B. Ferrara, an overview of the structure of the regional-national econometric model is presented, and the findings of the specific sections discussed in the other chapters are summarized. This chapter outlines the constraints of the modelling system that are conceived to be useful in regional-national planning. Readers will find it useful to frequently refer back to this chapter when reading the remainder of the book in that it is the only chapter which levels cohesion for the entire volume. AlthoughChapter 1 is quite useful and complete by itself, a useful supplement to the chapter and the entire book is the earlier paper by Brown, Di Palma, and Ferrara (1972) which presents a more complete specification of the structural equations in the model. The analysis of the Italian regional-national model is structured in terms of nineteen regions which for some components of the model are aggregated into four geographical areas. The sectoral breakdown of regional value added, investment, etc., considered in the model is the following: agriculture, industry, construction, transportation, commerce, housing, and public administration. With respect to consumption,six commodity groups are u s e d : food, clothing, health and hygiene, housing expenditures, transportation and communication,and other expenditures. Chapter 2, "A Utility Maximization Approach to Multipolar Migration Under Uncertainty: A Case Study of Interregional Migration in Italy," was written by S. S. Arora and M. Brown. Relationships that involve migration decisions are derived explicitly from utility maximization under uncertainty. An estimating form of a migration function is then derived which treats the amount of time a potential migrant plans to spend in a terminal region as a function of the relative (future) incomes anticipated in both regions, the relative factors of augmentation or attractiveness, the initial information possessed by the migrant, the distance between the two regions, and the total planning period of the migrant. The augmentation variables are approximated by indexes of urbanization and the initial information variable is approximated by regional employment rates. Although the discussion of the estimation results and of the various hypothesis tests was quite interesting, this reader considers it too brief. M. J. Hartley is the author of Chapter 3, "A Regional-National Model of the Italian Labor Market, 1951 to 1968." The purpose of this chapter is to provide an econometric model for the labor market of each of the nineteen regions of Italy. There are three sets of equations required for each region: 92
supply of labor, demand for labor, and wage adjustment equations. Treating resident population as given, Hartley examines the narrower problem of determining the regional labor force. The labor supply function is derived from a utility-maximization approach which is more fully presented in an earlier paper by Hartley and Revankar (1973). With respect to the specification of labor demand, the approach follows that of Lucas and Rapping (1969) in that sectoral labor demand depends upon the deflated wage rate at sectoral prices, value added of the sector, and a trend which denotes disembodied technological change. The consideration of the adjustment costs of the firm required that a distributed lag specification be employed in a CES firm production function. The sectoral wage determination equations were designed to reflect the market forces as well as the wage setting behavior that results from collective bargaining agreements between management and labor unions. A modified Phillips curve was adopted. Chapter 4, "A Regional Analysis of Prices in Italy," by M. Brown, has two objectives: 1) to explain the prices of product, consumption, and investment goods by region for the period 1951 to 1968 and 2) to determine the extent to which there are spatial differences in pricing behavior in the Italian economy for the same period. Chapter 4, also by Brown, examines the sectoral components of total value added by region within the regional-national income accounts framework in Italy by not treating sectoral output shares as constants. He derives the sector's supply functions in which sectoral value added depends on total regional value added, the sector's own price, and the regional price. One of the principal objectives of Brown's analysis is to quantify the effect of prices on sectoral supplies. A model of regional consumptionbehavior is presented in Chapter 6 by M. Brown and T. Furugori. Consumption expenditures on six items in household budgets (food, clothing, health, transportation, and other expenditures) are modelled for each of the nineteen regions resulting in 114 endogenousvariables to be explained. The authors specify and estimate a complete system of demand equations for each of the nineteen regions, a rather novel approach in regional analysis. The particular system adopted is a special case of the S-branch utility model. The use of a complete system of demand equations at the regional level allowed the use of relative prices and the omissionof disposable regional income in explaining commodity demand. Interesting policy implications of the analysis are also presented. Chapter 7, by S. S. Arora, focuses on an econometric model of interregional trade under insufficient information. The author suggests an alternative approach to derive net import statistics from the regional accounts, which is based upon tile "flow-of-product approach" and the "flow-of-cost approach." In addition, the causes of the deterioration of terms of trade between developed and developing regions of Italy are examined. Arora is also the author of Chapter 8 which examines the "impact of differential taxation policies on regional growth in Italy." Two types of taxes are included endogenously in the regional-national model of Italy: direct taxes, which include wealth and income taxes, and indirect taxes, which involve sales and value-added levies. The author attempts to cast some light on the question of whether differential tax policies have contributed to regional harmonization. He specified and estimated functions which endogenize taxes, both at the national and regional levels, which were then employed to analyze and test various hypotheses and implications. Regional investment activity in industry, agriculture, and housing is modelled in Chapter 9 by S. Kim. Since sectoral-regional investments in Italy 93
are heavily influenced by non-market considerations, they were originally conceived to be exogenous in the national-regional model and users of the model were advised to treat them in that way. However, Kim's provisional estimates of three sectoral investment functions suggest that they may be influenced to some extent by variables in the model, thereby making them endogenous. Kim's investment models were also developed to help explain the behavior of a firm in a regional context. Overall, the papers presented in this volume are well written. All of the authors have carefully based their selection of variables on rigorous theoretical models. Moreover, each paper is well supported with an extensive reference list. On the negative side, the chapters lack continuity. A few chapters gave no reference to the overall national-regional model. This reader had the impression these chapters were written as separate papers that were later added to the book. Given the volume reported on an incomplete study, a summary chapter which described how the various sections would be brought together in the national-regional policy model would have added a nice, finishing touch. Finally, although the reference lists are useful for those desiring more extensive exposure to the various topics, one occasionally had the feeling that the discussion was cut too short and was assuming the reader was already well informed. In summary, I highly recommend this book to those individuals involved in regional economic modelling or in the analysis of individual sectors issues at the regional level. I found the papers to be based upon sound economic analysis and to be characterized by sophisticated econometric procedure. A regional science researcher with the usual training in graduate economic theory and econometrics will greatly benefit from the ideas exposed in this volume. Ronald A. Oliveira Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics Oregon State University, USA
REFERENCES Brown, M., M. di Palma, and B. Ferrara. 1972. "A regional-national econometric model of Italy," Papers of the Regional Science Association 29:25-44. Glickman, N. J. 1977. Econometric Analysis of Regional Systems. New York: Academic Press. Hartley, M. J. and N. S. Revankar. 1973. "Labor supply under uncertainty and the rate of unemployment," American Economic Review 64: 170-175. Klein, L. R. 1969. "The specification of regional econometric models," Papers of the Regional Science Association 23:105-115. Lucas, R. E. and L. A. Rapping. 1969. "Real wages, employment and inflation," Journal of Political Economy 77:721-754.
THE PROCESS OF ECONOMIC PLANNING by Z. Kenessey. University Press, 1978, pp. 400. Cloth $17.50.
Columbia
This is a most unusual book by a senior economist with the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve Bank who has extensive practical experience in the field of economic planning throughout the world. It is in part a textbook and in part a testament of faith of the author's belief in the unavoidability of 94
planning in modern society and the preferability of non-detailed planning which makes wider use of market forces over detailed centralised planning models. The practical orientation of the book is reflected in the way in which the material is organised. After a brief introductory section which sets the scene and briefly reviews the historical experience of a number of countries, the institutional framework which governs economic planning is set out in a number of chapters. The argument is clear that, given the will to engage in planning, it is necessary to understand the institutional context in which it operates, particularly the role of the market. The weaknesses of crude planning versus market models are highlighted and it is argued that the two are essentially complementary in character. Having set the scene and outlined his position with respect to the institutional framework, the author moves on to consider the setting of national objectives. This he regards as one of the weakest links in most economic processes which arises out of the failure of politicians to resolve latent uncertainties and conflicts between goals. A variety of approaches to plan generation and elaboration are then examined. These include the study of popular aspirations, the contribution of economic theory, technological innovations and the availability of statistical material. This is followed by a discussion of basic planning techniques with special reference to input-output analysis and econometric modelling. The last sections of the book deal with questions related to the implementation of plans. This includes a discussion of the instruments that are required for t h i s purpose and the information that is needed for plan implementation monitoring purposes. The essential message of the author is developing systematically throughout the book. In the process many shrewd comments are made on current practice and a great deal of common-sense advice is given to readers. Nevertheless, the book is not very successful as an introductory textbook. Its scope is colossal and it is inevitable that the treatment of material is not consistent throughout. Some sections consist of little more than sub-headings, while the presentation of material in others lacks balance because of the selective nature of the author's own experience. However, most of these deficiencies can be remedied from other sources and the book can be recommended, nonetheless, to the thoughtful reader who wants to deepen his understanding of the practice rather than the theory of economic planning. fan Masser University of Sheffield, UK
REGIONAL ECONOMICS by Harry W. Richardson. University of Illinois Press, 1979, pp. 325. Cloth $15.00. This latest contribution by Richardson, billed as a text for a one semester course in regional economics, is a broad overview of the theory of the field. It represents a division and up-dating of his earlier work (Regional Economics: Location Theory, Urban Structure and Regional Change) and is a companion to his recently published Urban Economics (Dryden Press, 1978). No one can expect to write a book with such broad scope and leave nothing for a reviewer to say. Richardson is not an exception. 95
As a text the book does provide the necessary overview of the field, yet it is likely that it will find at least as much use among practicing professionals. In fact, it may be better suited to their needs than those of the student--unless the student of today is much better informed than his or her predecessor, a possibility that cannot be dismissed. The book is composed of ten chapters which may be seen as an introduction and five parts, although the author does not provide such subdivisions. Chapters two and three deal with spatial price theory and location; chapter four discusses macro demand models; chapters five, six and seven cover trade and factor movement, regional growth, and growth pole analysis; chapter eight is devoted to techniques; and chapters nine and ten explore regional policy issues, and trends in the United States. An extensive and intelligently compiled bibliography accompanies the work. The introduction contains the obligatory section on defining a region, but fails to shed any new light on the matter. Indeed, it omits any mention of a fairly widely used set of economic regions, namely the economic areas of the Bureau of Economic Analysis, U.S. Department of Commerce. While the book does briefly mention the theoretical underpinnings of the BEA economic areas-referring to the work of Fox--this omission foreshadows a deficiency in the rest of the text which may not serve the student well. That is, there is a tendency to dismiss as not very useful a good part of what the practicing regional economist does. In discussing macro demand models, for example, Richardson observes that while "...some of the models...would earn high marks for endurance, since they are still of service to public policy makers and planners, most of them are now passe" (pg. 82). This seems to beg the question: what is the purpose of the discipline if it is not to provide insights to public policy makers and planners? But his dissatisfaction is not limited to macro demand models. He also has harsh things to say about neoclassical growth models (due to their reliance on the price mechanism and marginal adjustment) and two-factor models of factor movement (due to their omission of natural resource endowment, the diffusion of innovation, and entrepreneur and manager mobility). He characterizes efforts to build regional accounts as being not only impossible but irrelevant. These are just a few of the compass points we have depended on that come under attack for, what must be granted are, sound reasons. There is, however, less than adequate guidance given to the present or future practitioner who, faced with a problem, must "make do." The discussion of spatial and locational matters is well organized, but given the scope of the subject and the diverse body of research that is reviewed, these chapters have a rather staccato character. It is likely that a course using this as a text would need additional readings on these topics. As statements of attempts to build a body of theory, the growth and trade and factor movement chapters are quite satisfying--giving the reader both an overview of some modelling efforts and an appreciation for the deficiencies of these efforts. Particularly with respect to regional growth the work is a challenging statement of where we stand and the directions for further research. The collection of techniques in a chapter separate from the theoretical and policy issues to which they presumably apply may be unfortunate. One is led to speculate that this may reflect some unresolved problems in the overall organization of the topic, in that the techniques themselves imply models of the regional or multi-regional economy. In summary, the book is probably not the definitive text on the subject, but it certainly is not disappointing. It is informative, in places inspiring and 96
challenging, and in places even angering. It is almost without exception, lively. For this the author should be commended. Ronald Drake Regional Analytics, Santa Barbara, California, USA. DYNAMIC OPTIMIZATION AND ECONOMIC APPLICATIONS by Ronald E. Miller. McGraw-Hill,Inc., 1979, pp. x, 332. This book contains a detailed introduction to dynamic optimization techniques, an assortment of applications to economic theory, and some supplementary background reading about in particular integration and differential equations. The work focusses on continuous methods, variational calculus and optimal control theory, whereas such methods as dynamic programming only occur in an appendix on computational aspects. Moreover, within the fields selected, the "classical" results dominate, whereas the direct variational methods based on series' expansions are not included. On the other hand, the presentation of the central topics is very detailed. In variational calculus not only the Euler condition, but the Legendre, Jacobi, and Weierstrass conditions are stated as well. In discussing the first and second variations of a functional the author presents sufficient material for the reader to get a firm understanding of the character of these conditions. The same is true about various transversality conditions for cases where the endpoints are not fixed or where the extremal is not smooth. By relating the Pontryagin optimum principle to the calculus of variations, with which the reader has become familiar, the author manages to make that principle too understandable. T h a t this is not so easy is understood if one glances at the original 40-page proof by Pontryagin. The author, of course, does not present a proof, but rather sufficient material for intuitively accepting the mathematical theorem. The book can be read with profit by first-year graduate students in economics. It seems to be a very careful and mathematically irreproachable work. It should, however, be understood that the reader without any previous knowledge about the topics covered may have to spend a considerable effort to follow the argument. It is a good feature that no advanced mathematics is used in the presentation, but by this the derivations at times become very long. An obvious question to pose is why such a book should be needed. At least about variational calculus there exist several excellent works at the same level of difficulty, in particular the works by Elsgolc, and by Fox. It is more difficult to find an elementary presentation of the maximum principle. Perhaps the Pontyagin et al. volume (with exception of the proof in Ch. 2) still is one of the best. Anyhow, the material covered is quite easily accessible in pure mathematical works that require no higher level of sophistication. The "raison d'etre" could be that the author collects variational methods and optimal control methods in one volume and relates the material to extensive exemplification from Economics and Regional Science. As a matter of fact it is difficult to find a good text on both variational calculus and optimal control and there are numerous examples in the volume reviewed. Besides the traditional brachistochrone, minimum revolution area, isoperimetric etc., problems there is a thoroughgoing exemplification by a monopolistic firm with quadratic cost function and facing a demand function 97
linear in price and the time rate of change of price. This case is solved very carefully and used with varying boundary constraints as illustration to the several different solution techniques discussed. There also is a Chapter on applications where the Ramsey consumption planning model, the Mills optimal land use model and a few other examples are discussed. The presentation is very clear and readable. My feeling, however, is that the book is more useful to general economists than to regional scientists. This is not so much due to the fact that examples from general economics are more abundant than those from regional science as to the following consideration. Although the author in several places stresses the parallelism between time and space coordinates in dynamics the analogy is interpreted so literally that space always remains one-dimensional. All the cases of spatial dynamics treated refer to monocentric radially symmetric models. As a result references to such work as exemplified by tile Angel and Hyman book are lacking. T h e i r optimal routing problem in a truly twodimensional space would provide a most interesting illustration. It is a pity that such optimal routing problems do not appear as illustrations. Moreover, the optimal routing problem dates back to early work by Beckmann where the problem is stated more elegantly as that of finding an optimal vector field that minimizes a certain double integral subject to a local constraint on the divergence. The techniques developed in the book reviewed do, unfortunately, not provide a sufficient basis for understanding such a classical work as Beckmann's thirty year old article. This is a pity because the material needed is available in quite advanced books such as Courant-Hilbert or Weinstock. So, whereas the material covered by the book reviewed is relatively easily accessible for the non-sophisticated reader, the much l e s s easily accessible information mentioned is missing. Undeniably this latter information relates to very basic models in regional science. This was my main disappointment when I read the book. The materials covered, on the other hand, are presented with utmost care and competence, making the reading a pleasure. Tonu Puu Department of Economics Umea University, Sweden REFERENCES
Angel, S. and G. M. Hyman, Urban Fields: A Geometry of Movement for Regional Science (Pion Ltd) 1976. Beckmann, M. J., "A Continuous Model of Transportation," Econometrica 20:643660. Courant, R. and IIilbert, D. Methods of Mathematical Physics (Vol. 1) (Interscience) 1953. Elsgolc, L. E., Calculus of Variations (Pergamon) 1961. Fox, C., An Introduction to the Calculus of Variations (Oxford University Press), 1954. Pontryagin, L. S., The Mathematical Theory of Optimal Processes (Pergamon) 1964. Weinstock, R., Calculus of Variations--with Applications to Physics and Engineering (Dover) 1974.
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THE SOVIET ENERGY SYSTEM; RESOURCE USE AND POLICIES edited by Leslie Dienes and Theodore Shabad. Halstead/John Wiley, V. H. Winston, 1979, pp. vii, 298. Cloth $19.95. The Soviet energy system is without question a timely topic. Consider, for example, the recent debate on tile ability of the USSR to supply its foreign customers, within and outside COMECON, never mind the domestic need (New York Times, 6/22/80; D. L. Bond and H. S. Levine, "Soviet Economy in a Time of Change," Hardt, ed., Energy and Grain in Soviet Hard Currency Trade, Joint Economic Committee U.S. Congress, G.P.O., 1979). We also note the growing literature, much of it in Russian but some in English, focusing on the need to facilitate and to cope with impact of enhanced energy production. The "Territorial Production Complex" (TPC) represents one direction of effort. (The more accessible writings on TPC have been published at the Siberian Branch of the Soviet Academy of Sciences and at IIASA, Laxenburg, Austria. See also G. J. Karaska and G. J. R. Linge, "Applicability of the Model of the Territorial Production Complex Outside the USSR," Papers RSA, Volume 40, 1978.) As the world's largest producer of hydrocarbons and possessing the second ranking energy system, the Soviet Union merits attention of the specialist as well as the generalist. The aim of the book "is to analyze the alternatives that Soviet energy planners face in meeting both the requirements of an expanding economy...and the need for exporting high priced energy products .... " Among the issues confronted are changing modes of energy decision making and administration, anticipated shift away from hydrocarbons to coal, the spatial discrepancy in availability of gas and other fuels between, on one hand, the energy deficient, industrialized and densely settled European USSR, and on tile other hand, the fuel abundant but sparsely populated east. Thus, both structural and spatial development problems arise and are to be discussed. Dienes and Shabad, geographers w i t h impressive credentials and publications in studies of the USSR, know the literature, Soviet and U.S. (The Preface identifies parts each wrote and credits Philip Pryde, San Diego Stae University geographer with the nuclear chapter). Replete with tables, mainly from Soviet government sources, and well provided with specially prepared maps, this book is a careful, thorough description of the recent history of supply and utilization of energy, with some anticipatory data to about 1990. The book has a chapter for each of themajor energy sources (oil, gas, coal, hydro, nuclear). Discussion of the power~enerating industry is followed by a rather short chapter on allocation choices (trade vs. domestic, coal vs. hydro, etc.), and a brief description of the results of longer run, large scale energy modeling efforts. The volume concludes with a consideration of the administrative and planning system as it impinges on energy (who plays what role, and, for this reviewer, all too few but excellent pages linking energy exploitation and regional development), and with comments on the world setting (e.g., impact of 1973, prospects for autarky). This is not a volume with innovative methods of energy analysis. Methodological pecularities of study (at least from our perspective) of a nonmarket economy are really not emphasized. There are few critical references to, much less illustrations, of programming, input-output, or comparative cost analysis. The sources which are copiously and carefully cited do, of course, use such methods--in fact, one of the motivations leading to the Soviet interest, belated and at times grudging, in regional science, mathematical economics, and systems analysis, is precisely the need to respond to such development problems as are occasioned by the intent to open up new areas of Siberia for resource and energy exploitation and by other such applications. 99
The interested regional scientist will be disappointed if s/he looks for new interpretation of shaddow pricing (not inconsequential in an administered economy with enormous transport cost for fuels, electricity, raw materials, semi-processed and finished goods). Not too much reference is given to distinct modes or models of transport systems, environmental impacts (here the authors mirror official Soviet tendencies), or of the differential fuel consumption of alternate urban patterns. Whilethe industrial location question is posed, and the TPC notion described (273-76), only some of the recent sharp critique is included. The authors do not share any insights why, often, location of individual plants and complexes seem to generate high costs, create more problems than they resolve. The military complex with its own product mix and demanding quality standards, does not surface in this volume, nor except in passing, do the various incentive and sanction systems needed to provide labor in remote hardship zones. In sum, this is a major work replete with not easily available Soviet information clearly presented and summarized. The diligent, careful reader will find himself wiser in his understanding of nuclear power plant siting and locations (perhaps paradoxically, densely settled European RSFSR is heavily nuclear), will be intrigued by the "catch up" of Siberian coal relative to output of older European mines, and will reflect on the impact of the vast growth in, and now leveling of Siberian oil production. The work does meet the needs of a wide range of readers, if not of the technical model-builder or econometrician. But even the specialist will welcome the work for its leads to the technical literatures. And as a well organized if occasionally hard to read presentation of a complex yet topical subject, it belongs on many reference shelves. Thomas A. Reiner Regional Science Department University of Pennsylvania, USA INTERCITY TRANSPORT; ENGINEERINGAND PLANNING by Tom Rallis. John Wiley & Sons, 1978, pp. XII, 232. Cloth $27.50. This book was written to be a comprehensively designed guide for an advanced course in transport engineering, particularly dealing w i t h the engineering, environmental, and economic aspects of intercity transport (shipping, railways, public road transport, pipelines, and air transport). There are five chapters which, in the given sequence, refer to the following subjects: (1) transport evolution (historical review of the evolution of the various transport modes, descriptions of transport systems on a worldwide and regional scale). (2) environmental factors (evaluation and measurement of accidents, noise, and aif pollution). 3. transport capacity (calculation of traffic load for the transport modes, determination of delays due to peak hour traffic). 4. transport economy,policy and location (discussionof transport investment, explanation of tariff policy in the context of the location problems, the network form, and the operation scheduling). 5. transport demand and planning (description of some new forecasting models for passenger and freight transport, evaluation of current transport systems problems). I00
The importance of these issues to regional science does not need to be emphasized. With particular reference to transportation we can agree with the author's opinion: "In recent years many transport problems have been treated in the literature, but to my knowledge, a book has not been published which offers a general, comparative description of transport, and which is applicable in practice to all service sectors of our transport networks" (p. ix). However, this statement does not necessarily justify the conclusion that the presentation of the text should be as comprehensive as possible. Indeed,the comprehensivenessof the material offered to the reader constitutes one essential weak point of this book. This comprehensivenessis due to (a) the broad field of analysis covered, as outlined above; (b) the assumed reader's knowledge of facility construction, traffic planning, regional science, statistics, operations research, and economics, often leading to a too brief discussion of the problems involved; and (c) the simultaneous presentation of abundant (often elementary) statistical information in the form of numerous diagrams and tables referring to different countries. The author hopes that his book will not only appeal to students in civil engineering, but will also be of interest to planners, designers, managers, and consultants. Who cannot be subsumedunder these labels? Sooner or later an economist will turn to Chapters 4 and 5. Due to the prevailing brevity of argumentation, on the one hand,there is often no analytical connection between the consecutive paragraphs of the text (for example, p. 152 or p. 159). On the other hand, the text is incomprehensibleor simply wrong in a number of places. For t h i s latter case, here are just two quotations: "...competition between public and private companies would be disturbed if all public companies used a marginal cost pricing policy" (p. 142). And on p. 187 we find: "Cost-benefit analysis is an important aid to public policy in order to avoid loss of consumers' surplus and to cover costs, both variable and overheads. Its aim is to extract revenue from those who benefit most, and encourage customers to travel or send goods at prices which at least cover variable costs." That the author is on no good terms with economics becomes quite clear when he starts in Chapter 5 (pp. 178-179) to discuss flow equilibrium in transport networks with reference to supply and demand functions. At the latest at this point the reader wonders at the given composition of this book, as represented by the sequence of the individual chapters. Would it not have been much more plausible to arrange the contents of the book in the following way (leaving aside Chapter 1): transport supply (Chapter 3), transport demand (Chapter 5), transport pricing and investment (Chapter 4), and environment factors (Chapter 2)? Moreover, it is striking that hardly any attention is given to the classical package of tools used in forecasting transport demand (estimation procedures of trip generation, trip distribution, modal split, and network assignment), considering its outstanding place in intra-urban and intercity empirical transport analysis and planning. In all, the intentions of the author with this book are too ambitious. The assemblage of a great number of undoubtedlyrelevant lecture notes, summarized here and supplemented there, does not yet produce a good book. Concentrating on the details of information given, this book may be of help for those readers who are looking for some preliminary guidance, willing to study the basic literature. Referencesare to be found at the end of each chapter. Waiter Buhr, University of Siegen, Germany
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DISTRIBUTION OF PERSONAL WEALTH IN BRITAINby A. B. Atkinson and A. J. Harrison. Cambridge University Press, 1978, pp. XIV, 330. Cloth $27.50. This book presents the findings of a six year study that has three major objectives: evaluation of methods of estimating the distribution of wealth, application of methodology to determine the size distribution of wealth for top wealth-holders in Britain, and interpretation of the observed distribution and trends over time. Chapters 2-4 deal with the first objective of the study. Chapter 2 examines in detail the methods used by the Inland Revenue in constructing official estimates of the distribution of personal wealth-holding by individuals in a particular year. The authors demonstrate that the Inland Revenue estimates are in need of considerable refinement. However,they feel that the estate data provided by the Inland Revenue must form the essential nucleus of any estimate of the upper part of the wealth distribution. The authors then devote a substantial portion of the book to improving the estate method. Chapter 3 is devoted to a very detailed analysis of the mortality multipliers used in the preparation of estate-based estimates of the size distribution of wealth. The authors find that the use of different mortality multipliers does result in substantial differences in the estimates of total wealth, but only small differences in the estimates of the share of top wealth-holders. Chapter 4 addresses one of the main criticisms of official estimates in Britain: certain types of wealth are omitted. By examining individual assets and in some cases making some rather arbitrary assumptions, the authors are able to allocate wealth missing from official estimates. Having justified two major improvements (selection of mortality multipliers and adjustment for missing wealth) in the estate method, the authors accomplish the second major objective of the study by presenting a new "adjusted" series of estimates in Chapter 5. The estimates are for the period i966-1972. Although total wealth was much larger in the revised series of estimates, the distribution, as measured by the shares of top wealth-holders, was not greatly different from the official estimates of distribution. Chapter 6 investigates trends in concentration over the period 1923-1972. Their estimates indicate a downward trend of approximately 0.4 percent per annum in the share of the top I percent. Chapter 7 compares the results derived from the estate method with estimates from an alternative investment income approach. The authors conclude that the investment income method has too many deficiencies to replace the estate method as tile principal source of evidence about the top wealth holders. Chapters 8 and 9 are concerned with the third major objective (interpretation of tile results). Chapter 8 surveys different theories of the distribution of wealth. Chapter 9 examines factors that help explain changes in the share of the top 1 percent. Tiros, as warned in their introductory chapter, their analysis concentrates on the position of the top 10 percent of wealth holders, and ."more particularly on the top 1 percent." A major limitation, therefore, of their work is that practically no attention is given to the distribution of wealth within the bottom 90 percent. Chapter 10 presents an excellent summary of the book. The excellent summaries in the last section of each of the chapters are also a strong feature of the book. This is especially desirable for the reader who would not want to read the large amount of technical material in each chapter despite the fact that the authors place a considerable amount of technical material in appendices. Thus, the book is well organized for the reader interested in technical material and for the reader wishing to avoid some of the more technical material. 102
Atkinson and Harrison have clearly made a contribution to the literature dealing with the distribution of wealth. Especiallysignificant are their analysis of methods and efforts to improve the estate method. While their book is concerned with the distribution of wealth in Britain, they seem to have succeeded in their hope that the methods applied will be of some interest in other countries with a tax system in the Anglo-Saxon tradition. The book, however, is not likely to be of substantial interest to most regional economists. Even those regional economists interested in wealth and income distribution at the sub-national level will likely find the detailed evalution of methodologies to be of little practical value. For example, data limitations at the sub-natioal level would seem to preclude the use of their suggested revisions in the estate method. The book is much more likely to be of interest to the macro economist interested in the aggregate workings of a national economy. W. E. Mullendore University of Texas at Arlington, USA OPPORTUNITY AND CHANGE by David L. Featherman and Robert M. Hauser. Academic Press, Inc., 1978, pp. 572. Cloth $22.00. This work furnishes an in-depth analysis of the occupational mobility of working American males based on 1973 "Occupational Changes in a Generation" (O.C.G.) survey data. In many r~espects this book constitutes a follow-up of earlier work by Blau and Duncan,~ based on 1962 data, with which the authors often attempt to compare their results. Starting with a very impressive data base, the approach is basically sociological-demographic, requiring a ranking of occupations and leaning heavily on intergenerational and intra-generational cohort analysis. Notwithstanding certain methodological limitations, cohort analysis, as employed by the authors, permits very rich insights into long term trends in occupational mobility, on the basis of only current data. Although the thrust of the book is on occupational mobility (both within generations and between generations and within work careers) the authors also deal with wage and educational stratification. Special chapters are devoted to analyzing mobility and stratification in terms of factors such as race, immigration and national and regional origin. This is probably the most exhaustive study in the field (495 tightly written pages plus appendices). Few avenues are left unexplored, both in terms of data analysis and description. The approach is a very factual one, almost clinical. Extensive and repeated use is made of various multivariate statistical methods (i.e., canonical correlation) to ascertain changes, trends and test models. The work is basically addressed to sociologists, demographers, or other specialists well acquainted with the field. It would probably make difficult reading for the non-initiated including m a n y Regional Scientists whose background lie in economics, geography or planning. This in no way diminishes the purely academic quality of the work (which is extremely high), but it is only fair to forwarn the reader that he will often have to wade through long methodological caveats or conceptual debates which may not necessarily interest him. In short, many Regional Scientists will not want to read the whole book. 1 See especially: Blau, Peter M. and Otis Dudley Duncan, The Amerian Occupational Structure., New York, Wiley, 1967. 103
On the other hand, readers interested in such matters as regional income differences, intergroup socio-economic inequality, interregional migration, discrimination, etc. will find fascinating reading and data in various chapters. In many respects this book resembles a highly technical research report, written by true professionals, methodologically impeccable, recounting in fine detail every analysis and result of which is clearly a huge project involving months and years of work. As a researcher, I am terribly impressed, and I might add, even a little envious. But what may be the greater quality of this work (the exhaustiveness of the analysis and the attempted "neutrality" of the reporting) may also be its greatest drawback. The authors fall victim to what, for want of better expressions, I shall call "pseudo neo-positivism," "jargonism" and "overanalysis." F r o m my early co]/ege days I stfI~ remember two golden rules (ascribed to George Orwell): "if something cannot be said in clear language it is not worth saying" and "concision is the greatest virtue." Like most researchers I have, admittedly, more often respected these rules in the breach than in practice. Still, if they are to have any meaning, then Featherman and Hauser's work would unfortunately rate rather low by George Orwell's standards, despite the exceedingly high academic quality of their work. This is unfortunate. It means that many who might read this book, who would profit from its analysis, shall not do so for they will find its length and language forbidding. Kriowledge must be transmitted. Numerousmethodological digressions would have been better put in appendices. The authors are not selective enough, both in their use of methods and in their reporting. In the end, the reader has difficulty sorting out the chaff from the grain (of which there is much) and may even feel cheated, after such dense analysis, by the authors' inability to synthesize their results. A basic assumption underlining this book is tlle increased social mobility resulting from industrialization, or more recently, post-industrialization. The authors take great pains not to reveal their preferences. Y e t , despite the clinical tone of the language and the technical quality of the analysis, one cannot help feeling that Featherman and Hauser basically share an optimistic view of social mobility in the United States. On the basis of their data, occupational mobility does indeed seem to have increased for U.S. working males (at least it has not decreased); yet, as the authors admit, they have not been able to adequately weed out the (labour) demand effects of structural change in occupational m i x . Also, the question of changes in the social hierarchy of occupations is not really answered to my satisfaction. When, for example, on pages 455-56, the authors conclude that "0niy among Hispanics and black Americans can the case for ...'discrimination'...be made" one is somewhat taken aback. Unlessmisinformed, I thought that these were the U.S.'s big "problem" populations, not some insignificant minority. These two groups, I believe, account for about fifty millionpeople, twice the population of Canada. Also, wage discrimination towards Blacks does not appear to be on the decline, according to Featherman and Hauser, despite occupational and educational achievement. Yet, such findings somehow appear ancillary beside Hauser and Featherman's complex analytical framework and what I would call their optimistic-clinical world view. The absence of any significant discussion of the implications of massive illegal immigration also disturbs me. But, then these are the reactions of an outsider and a non-specialist. This review is undoubtedly overly critical, often stressing form over content. This remains a major work. If only as a source of information, it will long remain indispensableto researchers in the field. The authors accomplished
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what they set out to do. We must congratulate Hauser and Featherman on a very impressive piece of work. Mario Polese Institut national de la recherche scientifique-Urbanisation (Universite du Quebec) Montreal, Canada
ENVIRONMENT AND ENERGY USE IN URBAN AREAS (The Household and Commercial Sector) by The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, 1978, 104 pp. Paper $6.50. This monograph is one of a series of reports prepared by the OECD to provide government officials with the relevant considerations in developing rational energy and environmental policies. It is written for policymakers who need to understand the b a s i c interrelationships between energy and environmental policy decisions but are neither trained economists or regional scientists. Therefore it is not recommended for practitioners who already understand these issues. The general premise of the policy recommendations is that "environmental objectives and energy demand policy goals are attainable simultaneously." The results of several studies are presented to illustrate potential energy/environmental alternatives to support this contention. The overall discussion emphasizes the regional nature of both energy and environmental problems. And it is argued such problems must therefore be addressed in a manner consonant with this fact. In addition, the relationship between energy and environmental goals must be understood for effective policy development. The issue of externalities is presented to the reader, and while the litany is familiar to the practicing economist it should provide valuable insights to the uninitiated policymaker. In addition, the need to develop alternative policy options are categorized as: demand management; price rationing; investment incentives; direct regulation; information dissemination; and institutional change. The monograph breaks no new ground here. Nor does it attempt to develop an integrated approach to selecting among the various options mentioned. The general emphasis on the need to coordinate energy and environmental policy fomulation and analysis is a positive contribution, however. The lack of such coordination is quite apparent and examples abound. One such case can be seen here in tile United States in the degree of cooperation between the Department of Energy and the Environmental Protection Agency. The modeling efforts of these agencies generally ignore the interrelationships between energy and environmental policy. In addition, the majority of their policy models are national in scope, whereas the problems are distinctly regional in nature. Some justification for this is attributable to the paucity of regional data, however federal decision-makers apparently do not fully comprehend the importance of the interrelationships. In the area of policy implementation this lack of coordination can also be seen. This is perhaps most glaring in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve Program. The DOE is developing Louisiana salt domes for use in stockpiling crude oil in the hope to mitigate the effects of any future oil embargo. To prepare the domes for use as gigantic storage tanks water is injected forming a brine solution. Then crude oil is pumped into the dome forcing out the solution. The adequate disposal of the brine solt~tion poses a significant environmental 105
problem. The DOE decision to dispose of the brine in the Gulf of Mexico brought the two agencies into direct conflict. Comprehensive policy formulation could have avoided this problem. The OECD paper clearly identifies this need and could represent a contribution if its recommendations are heeded. None of the points raised by the paper are particularly controversial. Few analysts still believe that a simple direct relationship exists between gross national product and energy consumption, although the paper goes to some lengths to dispel this notion. Nor is the general desirability of recovering much of the energy currently dissipated into the air and water in the form of heat. However, the conclusion that co-generation of electric power and district heating would be facilitated by a switch to "non-polluting" nuclear power from oil and coal is open to serious debate. The authors here ignore the externalities associated with nuclear fission. Although the monograph was written well before the Three-Mile Island accident the disposal problems of spent fissionable material was even then apparent. This oversight may serve to illustrate the complexities faced when trying to evaluate the social costs of alternatives. One area that deserves more extensive treatment is that of "high" versus "low" quality energy. As is pointed out "the present structure of energy supply and use is based largely on high grade energy supply systems" and these tend to be centralized and capital intensive. The authors argue that much of the energy needs in the household/commercial sectors can be satisfied by low quality energy. Solar power in the form of sunlight and wind is an example of low quality energy. In order to efficiently develop sources of low quality energy, institutional changes need to occur. The energy industry now is structured so as to encourage centralized, capital intensive activities. Low quality energy sources ar not amenable to centralization requiring instead decentralization to operate at all. Solar heating of water appears ideally suited for single-family houses. Governmentsolar programs however are currently geared primarily to large-scale projects relying on banks of solar reflectors located either in the desert or outer space. A switch to low grade energy would result in decentralization and be labor intensive. In general, the monograph does not represent a significant contribution to the field of regional science. It does serve the purpose of outlining important issues for "those involved in formulating environment and energy policies at local, state and central government levels." While providing a general overview and identifying some problems, the paper offers no unique solutions. Conclusions are presented in the form of gross generalities, i.e., energy pricing policy should be "consistent with the 'polluter pays principle.TM The report is therefore recommended to the non-economist policymaker but not to the regional scientist. William A. Donnelly University of Louisville, USA. PEOPLE DEVELOPMENT IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIESby Ross Matheson, John Wiley & Sons, 1978, pp. xviii, 242. Cloth $24.95.* This is a very simple book about a very complex subject. It is aimed at the personnel managers of international firms working in the less developed *The opinions expressed in this book review are those of the reviewer alone and should not in any way be attributed to the World Bank or any of its affiliated organizations. 106
countries (LDCs). As such the author eschews theory in favor of a "how-to" approach sprinkled here and there with cautionary remarks about the difficulty of transposing experience from one country to the other. The book is organized into six chapters: (i) The Environment; (ii) The Dynamics; (iii) Practical Aids; (iv) Implications; (v) The Expatriate Question; and (vi) Key Points and Summarized Conclusions. In addition twelve appendices cover a variety of subjects with disparate degrees of superficiality and precision. Without question, the subject matter is fundamental to understanding the process of development. Nevertheless, the book is not the least bit informative or insightful in dealing with the knotty problem of the role of human resources in the development process. Nor is the book any better in terms of providing a theoretical underpinning to evaluate the content of different approaches to the development of human resources of less developed countries. In fact this total absence of a theoretical framework leads to the easy use of terms such as "emerging countries," "developing countries" without any clear definitions of what the process of "emerging" or "developing" is all about and hence what the role of human resources is. Let us accept that the author has purposely eschewed rigorous analysis and theory. The book is geared to practical managers. Nevertheless, I would think that at least a summary review of the author's own theoretical position in the context of existing theories would be helpful to the reader. (There is a wide range of thinking within this domain and for those same busy practical managers who may want a quick survey of the field, I would recommend Behavioral Theories, a very small volume edited by Susan Scott, published by the Coverdale Educational Publishers in London.) The book provides some excellent "how-to" checklists in the appendices. The text itself is disjointed and seems to reflect a "cut-and-paste" collection of lecture notes, flip-chart materials and discussion diagrams. Some are jewels; others are of very bland character. Very substantial editing would be required to make the book flow better. The reader is also left with an ambiguous impression of duality: on the one hand, tile author affirms sympathy with the cultures of LDCs (e.g. "A further essential point in the context of people development is understanding...the patterns of local life. Here is no implication of adopting a superior attitude. It is totally a matter of respecting a local situation" (p. 5)). On the other hand, one runs across patronising passages that do adopt a superior attitude (e.g. "A local language that has b e e n developed in an environment dominated by the size of a catch of fish or the quality of a rice paddy irrigation system will not necessarily have developed a code or language suitable for the finer points of modern business? (p. 48)). In the final analysis, I would conclude that the author does indeed have sympathy and feelings for local cultures, and I commend to readers Appendix XII, which contains brief statements that include real gems of wisdom. All in all, the b o o k has many valuable, useful things to say. Unfortunately, it is poorly edited resulting in a choppy disjointed style. Mr. Matheson's undoubtedly extensive experience and practical wisdom deserve a better vehicle than the present work. It is to be hoped that the next effort would also give those among us who are concerned with analysis, a clearer treatment of the theoretical foundations on which the recommended course(s) of action are based. Ismail Serageldin Technical Assistance and Special Studies Division The World Bank 107
ATLAS OF SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC REGIONS OF EUROPEby Prof. Dr. Deiter Hating and Dr. Walter Menges, ed., Nomos Verlagesgesellschaft mbh & Co KG, 1978 (Complete through 1978). Approx. 100 plates. Approx. $400.00. This remarkable atlas contains a wealth of social and economic information for subnational regions of Europe, excluding the Soviet Union. Its cost probably relegates it to use as a reference document, but any student of the human geography of Europe will profit from study of this atlas. The physical format of the atlas is a model of design. The maps are at a scale of 1:4000000, printed on a 24" x 32" page size. These maps are folded in half, and then are individually bound into a ring-binder via a cloth spline. Thus, when the atlas is opened each page lies flat for easy reading. At this scale, it takes four plates to cover all of Europe for a single thematic map subject. The atlas has been produced over a number of years, with additional plates being produced occasionally; our University library has a standing "subscription" to the atlas. The atlas is divided into three sections, which are broadly: economic characteristics, "technical" characteristics, and social characteristics. The first and third sections dominate the contents. One of the stated purposes of the atlas is to "show up the living conditions of a large number of people in the present time," which is defined roughly as 1950. The nations of Europe were divided into subregions with about 500,000 population, except for the large conurbations. In some cases choropleth maps are used to display information on this regionalization, in other cases intraregional detail is also provided. Many maps are presented as cartograms, using geometric figures such as (stacked) parallelograms to portray complex sets of information about regional structure or structural change. The ingenuity utilized in displaying information in this atlas (with clearly differentiated colors and symbols) is striking in contrast to most large scale national or commercial atlases, and certainly results in the communication of many complex covarying relationships. As an illustration of the type of complex information portrayed in this atlas, let us consider the symbols of the maps of changes in occupational structure. The accompanying figure shows the representation for a typical region; Europe is divided into 589 regions of this type. The left half of the parallelogram indicates an occupational type for a later time period (such as 1970). Three major industrial groups are shown (agriculture, manufacturing and services) in seven different (clearly differentiated color) situations; singly dominating a regional economy, two activities being dominated, or all three in balance. Lighter tones are used in cases where a single industry dominates a regional economy, and darker tones are used to indicate stronger industrial specialization. The numerals in the lower left and upper right parts of the figures indicate the actual percentages of employment in cases of single industry dominance. The color tone for the earlier time period is shown with stripes, to help the eye differentiate data for sets of regions between the two time periods. An identification number for the region is shown at the bottom of the figure, and a "town" symbol is used to indicate whether the region is a large urbanized region significantly exceeding the average population size used for the regionalization scheme. Section one of the atlas has plates related to the occupational structure of subregions, types of agricultural cultivation, industrial jobs, birth rates, the natural growth of the population, and migration in the period 1950 to 1960. Section II contains maps on the structure of the transportation network, the frequency of doctors and hospitals, and on the educational level of the 108
X// S population. Section III shows many aspects of the development of Europe since 1950, including details for the period 1950 o 1960, 1969 to 1970, and 1950 to 1970. Plates showing changes in the occupational structure of subregions, changes in population density, changes in population levels, changes in birth rates, changes in the proportion of the population over the age of 65, and changes in the overall age distribution of the population are included in section III. The maps in each section of the atlas are accompanied by interpretive text, which helps generalize the trends or characteristics being displayed. The maps themselves contain detailed legends, which clearly explain the very complex (color coded) printing and symbology utilized in this atlas. Unfortunately, many of the map series are incomplete. Significantly more plates cover western Europe than Eastern Europe, the Iberian peninsula, or Turkey. The atlas was produced by the Sociology Institute of the JohannWolfgang-Goethe University in Frankfurt-am Main. Unfortunateiy, the editors have not provided an overall description of their design for the ultimate content of the atlas, nor any transitional text to integrate the various series of maps in the Atlas. Part I does have a summary section, but no introduction or summaries are provided for the other two sections. When and/or if this project is ever completed (as of this writing 17 installments have been produced) summaries would be desirable. William B. Beyers University of Washington, USA
URUGUAY IN TRANSITION: FROM CIVILIAN TO MILITARY RULE by Edy Kaufman. Transaction Boos, 1979, pp. xv, 126. Cloth $9.95. In this interesting book, Edy Kaufman, professor at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, tries to analyze the series of events that changed the image of Uruguay, the small Latin American country known, as properly stated by the author, until more or less the beginning of the 70's as South America's Switzerland. The core of the book is constituted by the analysis of the principal variables that, according to Kaufman, have affected the political development of Uruguay. These variables are separated by the author as internal and external and he points out that regarding their relative importance within each category they are difficult to evaluate. He considers that the internal variables seem to have playedthe more important role in the process of military involvement. The influences exerted by the United States and by two Latin American countries, Argentina and Brazil, are studied as external factors. Within this context the political tendencies of the Latin American subsystem are also investigated. The internal variables analyzed are the competitive elites (traditional political parties, among them). The urban guerrilla movement known as Tupamaros whose origin seems to date 109
back to 1962 and what Kaufman calls interest groups, among which are mentioned trade unions, universities, the church, dominant economic sectors, mass media, and public opinion. The analysis of this set of variables is made within the context of the economical and political struture of Uruguay. Towards the middle of 1950 there began a grave deterioration of its economy, an event which shall have a tremendous repercussion in its ultimate political development. Kaufman also tries to determine whether the decision of the army to assume absolute power, maintaining a nominal civil president, was of a strategical nature or if (on the contrary) it was the result of tactical decisions. Also, what was the precise moment in which this decision was adopted. The principal results of this study are used, in the penultimate chapter of the book, to test several hypotheses concerning the military intervention as an independent variable, both within a general theoretical context and in specific cases of Latin American developing countries. To attain these objectives tile author, besides an introductory chapter, organizes the book in six other chapters. A chronological appendix (Sequence of Events) is very useful as it helps the reader to orient himself regarding the main events of Uruguayan policy during the period covered by the analysis. There is a general bibliography and an onomastic index plus a section of notes at the end of every chapter. This work attains the objectives of the author to provide a comprehensive analysis of the factors that paved the way for the military takeover in Uruguay showing the importance that should be given in studies of this kind (and specially in the case of small countries), not only to factors of a internal orregional type but also to those of an external charater. It should be mentioned that the last chapter of the book is of special interest as it is there that the problems related to the methodology used in the analysis are examined. This book should be read by every regional scientist interested in political science, especially in its Latin American aspects, as it provides an interesting methodolog~y for the analysis of political crises. T h i s book can also be recommended to the general reader. The only criticism that could be made by the reviewer is that the book lacks a subject index. As for tile rest, the book is well-written, well-organized, well-documented and well-edited. Patrizia Spinetti Universidad de Los Andes Merida, Venezuela ENVIRONMENT AND BEHAVIOR: PSYCHOLOGY OF URBAN LIFE edited by Edward K. Sadalla and David Stea. Sage Publications, 1978, pp. 139-291. Paper. Urbanism is the outgrowth of the agricultural and industrial revolutions. Rapid transformation of the West, and increasingly of the rest of the world, from dispersed rural settings to concentrated urban settings suggest major changes in human life. Psychology of Urban Life is a collection of six papers addressing tile nature and consequences of urban life by some of the foremost authorities in the area of environmental psychology.
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Editors Edward K. Sadalla and David Stea introduce the subject in the first section entitled "Approaches to a Psychology of Urban Life." A brief overview of urbanization is followed by a discussion of the two general approaches to studying the impact of urbanism: ecological and the sociostructural. The ecological approach, most closely associated with Wirth of the Chicago School of Sociologists, defines urban settings in terms of size, density and heterogeneity. It explores the relationship between spatial distributions of population and the parameters of social and psychological functioning. The sociostructural approach, most closely identified with German Sociologist Durkheim, attempts to understand urbanization in terms of a shift in subsistence technologies, economic alternatives and role differentiation. Most of the papers contained in this volume reflect an ecological perspective on urbanization. The editors state that for research to be "maximally useful," it must predict as well as describe. Criticism is leveled at urban planners who they believe have concentrated on quantitative rather than qualitative predictions. They suggest that environmental psychology of the type presented in Psychology of Urban Life offers ideas, theoretical positions and research illustrating psychosocial life adjustments induced by various aspects of city living. Harold M. Proshansky in his paper "The City and Self-ldentity" explores the physical dimensions of urban places in relation to its consequences on the formation and development of an individual's self-identity. "Urbanism from the Perspective of Ecological Psychologists" by Paul V. Grump and Bettina Adleberg sets the theoretical and methodological underpinnings of environmental psychology. They address the fundamental concepts of behavior settings and manning or staffing these settings. The fundamental questions of: "What is the nature of environmental perception?" and "What is the relationship between perceived environmental change and environmental action?" are the focal points of William Ittelson's paper on "Environmental Perception and Urban Experience." Amos Rapoport in "Nomadism as a Man--Environment System" applies concepts derived from the general Man-Environment Systems models to the specific problem of nomadic sedentarization. Analysis is directed toward the planners' need to understand consequences of sedentarization as prerequisite to developing prudent plans and policies. The association between urban density factors in relation to health and social pathology is investigated by Sandra L. Kirmeyer in her paper "Urban Density and Pathology: A Review of Research." The last paper, "Population Size, Structural Differentiation, and Human Behavior" written by Edward K. Sadalla reviews evidence revealing the relationships between the size of an urban place and its important social and psychological consequences. Psychology of Urban Life has much to offer the scholar or practitioner unfamiliar with the precepts of environmental psychology. The papers in the collection review urbanization in light of fundamental concepts, theories and methodologies formulated over the past forty years. The book is reasonably well organized considering the diversity of the papers in relation to the book's objective. The papers are essentially reviews of literature around a central theme or thesis rather tilan substantive works making new contributions. In the final analysis, the editor's purpose of exposing planners to qualitative research is achieved, but none of the papers give direct evidence of the inherent usefulness of the concepts offered. David P. Brennan The General Tire & Rubber Company, USA 111
URBANIZATION AND SOCIAL CHANGEIN WEST AFRICAby Josef Gugler and William G. Flanagan. Cambridge University Press, 1978, pp. XIV, 235. Hard Cover $19.95; Paper $5.95. The growth of literature on urbanization in West Africa has been prolific. In the 1950's there were a few pioneering works, such as those of William Bascom. The 1960's saw a flourishing of fine individual studies well exemplified by the works of Peter Lloyd or Peter Marris and, by the end of the decade, the production of comprehensive accounts of experiences in individual countries w i t h Akin Mabogunje's Urbanization in Nigeria being the most significant. The development of urban studies in West Africa has now progressed to the point where Gugler and Flanagan are able to compile an eighteen page bibliography which deals with both social and economic aspects of cities and towns spread throughout the whole of West Africa. This book is a review and commentary on this literature. As such it is a most welcome addition. The scene is set by a useful historical account of city growth in West Africa followed by the introduction of modern issues through the standard topics of urbanization and economic development, and rural-urban migration. The authors' touch is here less convincing than in later chapters; much is revealed about the scale and even the look of modern urbanization but the reader gains only a partial understanding of why this is taking place. Much of the standard literature on the dynamics of urban development and economic growth is bypassed in Chapter 2. To some extent the next chapter, on rural-urban migration, seeks to redress this by attempting to balance economic and non-economic determinants of migration but the treatment is too broad and inconclusive and, in respect to the backward-sloping labour supply function, too dated to really satisfy. The bulk of the book (the next six chapters) is given over to an analysis of sociological issues and it is in this area that the authors reveal their reaI strengths. The topics covered are town-village relationships, social setting in the towns, the role of the family, the position of women, and stratification and social mobility: all regular enough in appearance but not in execution. Gugler and Flanagan manage to link together the ideas of a broad spectrum of studies in a most readable and professional manner, but go further to bring us closer to the sense and purposes of the various works by including a series of key passages which add colour and life to the text. The book seems to get better as it proceeds and the final two chapters on stratification and social mobility (considered from a political viewpoint), and the incorporation of the West African peasantry are very fine indeed. Any reader seeking a broad introduction to cities in West Africa will find this book most useful. Regional scientists with their developing interest in welfare and social issues will find this book appealing because of the strong thematic and theoretical mould in which the ideas are set. The major weakness of the book is that despite its breadth of coverage and its novel use of primary material there is some failure to communicate the colour and complexity of African urban life. Perhaps this is inevitable. To harness the work of so many researchers in so many countries it was necessary to produce broad themes which made comparisons and analyses possible. Such themes, and the concepts which illuminate them, generally reflect the ideas and thinking of Western academics. The real world is distorted and even reshaped to suit our own cultural biases. Until there are more Africans studying and interpreting the nature of their urban growth these dangers will be ever present. In lieu of a comprehensive African 112
statement on urbanization and change Gugler and Flanagan have provided us with a fine substitute. M. T. Daly University of Sydney, Australia
THE ECONOMIC CONSEQUENCES OF SLOWING POPULATION GROWTH edited by Thomas J. Espenshade and William J. Serow. Academic Press, Inc., 1978, pp. XVI, 288. Cloth $19.50. This book contains a number of monographs prepared for a Conference entitled "The Economic Consequences of Slowing Population Growth," sponsored by the Centre for Population research, held in May, 1977, in Washington, D.C. at the National Institute of Health. It is also the latest book in the series "Studies in Population," sponsored by the Department of ,Sociology, University of Wisconsin, under the editorship of H. H. Winsborough. The Conference, and hence this book, addressed itself to the policy implications of a declining birth rate in the United States, dealing with such important subject areas as fiscal policy, investment demand, social security programs, as related to an aging population, and so on. Since many local governments' public services are age-related, for example, education, and since national governments' financial support to the local and regional level is often population dependent, this book contains much useful information to the regional scientist. Futhermore, the review of the appropriate current literature contained in chapter (2) by the editors (Espenshade and Serow), provides a useful perspective to the researcher who wishes either a short glimpse of the current literature, or requires some guidance in his/her selection further material to read, study, and/or research. The book falls into three parts. The first (Ch. 1 to 3) deals with the past, presenting demographic trends and some of the consequences already known arising from these trends, and touches on some prospects for the future. The second section (Ch. 4 to 6) "is intended as a study of the main economic consequences of declining population growth rates." The possibility of secular stagnation is looked at, as well as the e f f e c t on American immigration laws. The third section (Ch. 7 to 9) presents some of the implications to possible programs, such as social security and the AFDC program. In particular, the essay by Alfred M. Pitts on social security will be of interest to economists and others concerned with the need for a restructuring of the financial support for OASD. Finally, Robert L. Clark (Ch. 10) summarizes and reviews for the reader the various presentations and findings in the nine preceding chapters, and draws some consideration for future public policy-makers, and suggests areas for further research. This reviewer agrees with Professor Clark when he writes in his conclusion: "In sum, the interested reader will find these papers replete with topics for further research. Those who are responsible for policy formulation will find the p a p e r s helpful in assessing the possible impact of demographic change upon al t er n a t iv e governmental policies." Robert W. Keyes Western Canada Steel Limited, Canada
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BANGLADESH--EQUITABLE GROWTH? by Joseph F. Stepanek. Press, 1979, pp. 190.
Pergamon
J. F. Stepanek is a member of the Agency for International Development in Washington; he has worked on food assistance problems. His book is an interesting analysis on the development difficulties in Bangladesh. It is also a good description of the conditions of success of the "Green Revolution" in underdeveloped countries. After a summary of the economic and political situation in Bangladesh, we find an historical study about the growth of poverty in an economy in which the population is growing much more quickly than food. So, the old growth theories are criticised: the capital intensive settlements they bring forward are inadequate because the growth of employment is much more weak in front of the labor demand. The author proposes an economic model of modern rice culture. The use of new seeds with high productivity is a solution if some major conditions are collected. National demand for rice must be satisfied by local production and income distribution must be more egalitarian than now. It is also necessary that national production bring an income surplus for capital formation. The second part of the book (chapter 5 to chapter 10) is an analysis of the conditions of success of the political model of modern rice culture. The first difficulty is the reorganisation of the food rationing system in the urban centers: the present system favours urban population and often the middle class; it creates a system of prices which is low in the towns and which influences the prices of local rice; a price too low at the productive level is the cause of low incomes and of a very low level of savings. A second important problem is the impact of new technology: mechanisation is favourable to the richer part of farmers. It is the power of the urban elite that determines policy and prices and not the domestic resource endowment. But the main difficulty is certainly to organise land reform: from one year to another, the number of landless families is growing, the number of too small farms is too high and the land reforms are totally ineffective. The land reform implies a new credit structure, an increased willingness of the richer part of the people and a more effective governmental policy. The conditions are the same if we examine water use for development. The cost of big project is very high and the results are very weak particularly for growth of irrigated land. At least, the author examines the institutions created to assume the development of rural Bangladesh and especially the Thana training and development center and the Thana central cooperatives association. This book gives a very good description of rural policy in an underdeveloped economy. The analysis is offered at the national level and it is not a regional work. The purpose is not to describe the diversity of rural Bangladesh, but through this national approach, we can find some interesting notions about the regional problems in the rural society. This book is particularly clear and it is very easy to understand all the problems of the agricultural progress in this type of country. The information which is given is generally precise and it is evident that the author is a good specialist in rural problems and South-East Asia societies. The solutions given are certainly appropriate for other countries and the analysis is always placed at a general level with some local applications. From ml economic point of view, some questions appear. The objectives of the author are clear: how to realise the general utilisation of new seeds to promote ecnomic development? The analysis of the difficulties is equally clear, but it is not easy to understand how to overcome these obstacles. In particular, cost benefit analysis could be applied to those projects to obtain a more precise 114
approach. The work is perhaps too descriptive, with an insufficient use of economic methodology for a b e t t e r knowledge of the feasibility of the proposals. In its conception, this book is a good instrument for all researchers wanting to know the main orientation of the rural arrnagement of space in one of the poorest parts of the world. Its reading is recommended to economists and geographers who are concerned with agriculture and underdevelopment. It is also interesting to all people researching rural space arrangements from a comparative point of view. It is particularly a very good contribution to the study of the green revolution in a country in which major difficulties can be found in the promotion of technical progress and g r e a t e r equality. Marc Penouil Eaculd des Sciences Economiques University of Bordeaux, France TAX BENEFIT POSITION OF SELECTED INCOME IN OECD MEMBER COUNTRIES: A Report by the C o m m i t t e e on Fiscal Affairs, by OECD, 1978, pp. 132, Paper $8.75. Tax is a perennial concern not only to economists but also to people at large. Welfare minded government needs to collect more of it just to maintain the kind of welfare services they are now providing in an age of continuing inflation. Recession on the other hand makes it highly desirable to cut taxes so that businesses will have incentives to engage in business more positively and consumers can spend more out of their earnings. Thus tax is one of the most important and contended policy instruments that policy makers rely on in navigating their economy and in pursuing social objectives. Besides satisfying curiosity as to whether or not one is paying a higher level of tax burden than his counterparts in other countries, international comparison of tax burdens will be of great value, helping to develop universal understanding and strong basis for justification of various tax systems. The book under review is a report of international comparison of the impact of personal income tax on disposable income in member countries of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). OECD has been engaged in a series of studies on disposable income and whether the impact is consistent with the aims of general tax and social policies. The book is the last in the series and reports their findings as to the relationships between direct personal tax, social security contributions, and cash transfers on the one hand and disposable income on the other in twenty-three member countries. Comparison of different income tax systems under different settings is made difficult by, among other things, the impact of indirect taxes as well as local taxes, the relationship between corporate vs. personal taxes, and levels of social welfare, which must vary in all countries. Ignoringone of these factors will enormously reduce the significance of such a cross-country study but, admitting the limits brought by such constraints, OECD has undertaken cross studies of its member countries on the impact of direct tax and social security contributions and transfers upon the disposable income. By the way, "benefit" in the title does not imply the word used in the context of cost vs. benefit which may be more relevant to regional scientists. Benefit here is synonymous with cash transfers. (It would be extremely interesting if a cost-benefit study of taxes should be undertaken in an international context!) With a major aim of presenting the impact of income tax, social security 115
contributions and transfers upon disposable income of different levels and of different family structures, the study tries to describe income tax realities of member countries from as varied angles as one can practically resort to. To avoid futile efforts of converting the figures to a single currency unit, the basic unit used in the study is the gross earnings of the average production worker. Findings are presented for each member country according to the classifications of different income groups, single or married, no children or with two children. Also tax burden is shown in three categories: personal income tax only, social security contributions only and both of them taken together. Classification is very meticulous in spite of the international nature and it is apparent that every effort is made to make sure the cross country study of personal tax situation in relation to disposable income is as fairly presented as possible. As an example of the very careful treatment of the subject in the study, let me cite marginal tax rates. Three different methods of translating the concept of marginal tax rates are introduced in an effort to capture the real picture of marginal tax rates in different countries as accurately as possible, although each definition may have a slightly different implication. In the first definition, marginal tax rates are calculated in terms of the change in the tax payments which results from a 10% increase in gross earnings, which is more or less the most popular notion of marginal tax. Tile second method of demonstrating the reality of marginal tax rates aims to capture marginal tax rates in terms of changes in disposable income, and the change in the disposable income brought by a 10% increase in gross earnings is shown as a percentage of original disposable income. An attempt is made in the third method to define marginal tax rates over time by expressing the change in tax payments between two tax years as a percentage of the change in gross earnings between the same periods. This is an effort to take into account changes that may have taken place in the economic environment or in gross earnings or in tax structure over time. It is very interesting to see what difference it makes to calculate marginal tax rates according to different methods. For example, an average Swedish production worker with his wife and two children had a marginal tax rate of 62% in 1972 and 63% in 1973 according to the first definition, but he faced only 37% of the increase in the gross earnings in additional tax payments between 1972 and 1976 in the third dynamic definition. All findings are given systematically, although the book never carries any interpretations of such findings in terms of social or economic background of member countries. It is left to the reader to translate facts presented in the report as well as in its numerous charts, tables and figures into some theoretical assumptions, perhaps with the help of a brief description of the personal tax systems in member countries included in the report. It must have been an extraordinary task to collect the data on the internationally comparable basis since the information required involved social and economic institutions deeply rooted in different fashions in different countries. Perhaps no other establishment than OECD could have done such a wide study as this report, so thoroughly and detailed. The relevance of the book to regional scientists may not be too direct, but the book abounds with ideas as to the conceptualization and quantification of tax systems which may widely differ according to concerned countries or regions, making the report worthwhile reading even to regional scientists. K. Shimizu School of Business and Economics 116
THE BENEFITS OF ENVIRONMENTAL IMPROVEMENT by A. Myrick Freeman III. Johns Hopkins University Press, 1979, pp. ix, 272. Paper $6.95. One of the more difficult issues facing those of us in the environmental arena has been the issue of quantification. After all one man's cost is another man's benefit. How does one assign a number to the benefit of preserving a pastoral scene as opposed to, let us say, the strip mining of coal and its resulting ugliness in these energy-short times? In his book, The Benefits of Environmental Improvements, A. Myrick Freeman III explores this issue, analyzing and evaluating it in a rational, logical, objective fashion. His main purpose in writing the book, the author states, is to bridge what I perceive to be a major gap in the literature of benefit estimation. On the one hand, there has been a substantial research e f f o r t devoted to developing a rigorous and unambiguous definition and measure of changes in welfare at the t h e o r e t i c a l level. This body of literature displays relatively little concern for translating the t h e o r e t i c a l concepts and definitions into usable, operational empirical techniques. On the other hand, empirical es t i m at es of benefits have often been based on ad hoe procedures which have lacked an adequate t h e o r e t i c a l foundation. There is a major research need to develop empirical techniques which are consistent with the underlying economic theory and at the same time to develop, where possible, the t h eo r et i cal underpinning for some of the empirical techniques in most common use. The major task of this book, the author continues ...will be to review and summarize the basic theory of welfare measurement and to relate actual estimating techniques to this underlying theory. Although the concept of benefits is basically economic in nature, the benefits are produced from an underlying physical, environmental system. The book examines the relationship between benefits and environmental decision-making and the problems involved in measuring environmental e f f e c t s . There is discussion on the concept of benefits and welfare change and on measuring benefits from market data and non-market data. The author explores the relationship between property values and benefit estimation. He also scrutinizes the vaiue of longevity as well as recreation and productivity benefits and their relationship to environmental concerns. From his observations, Freeman draws the following conclusions on the benefits of environmental improvement and the techniques and data needed to measure them. ...The number of empirical techniques discussed and the variety of references offered in the book suggest that a far from empty tool box is available for the economist or regional scientist who must seek an answer to the question: what is the value of an environmental improvement? Freeman believes that
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...an economist could specify the economic theory and models he would use, the data he would like to have, and the empirical techniques he would apply to the data to obtain measures of benefits. This is a fairly optimistic statement about the state of the art. One must be careful not to read too much into it. The appropriate models and techniques can be identified; and the data requirements can be established. But this does not mean that gathering the data and implementing the techniques would be easy. Moreover,the statement refers only to the economic aspects of the problem. W h e r e the economic technique requires noneconomic data, economic analysis must be postponed until we gain a better understanding of the non-economic aspects of tile problem. Freeman concludes the book by making two basic recommendations for improving the state of the art in the quantification of environmental costs and benefits. One recommendation deals with improvements in the basic data and analytical techniques, and calls for a further series of studies to obtain more data, for further development of a willingness-to-pay model in which one element of choice is a small change in the probability of death, and for a careful analysis "...to determine the implied or explicit values placed on human life or changes in probability of death." His second recommendation calls for the initiation of ex post measurements of realized benefits. Freeman's book is well-organized and lucidly written. He meets tile objectives he set forth to achieve. The Benefits of Environmental ImDrovement contributes to both the development of regional thought and to the application of that thought to the interface between costs, benefits and the environment. This reviewer highly recommends this book to all thoughtful and discerning regional scientists and to those in related fields, particularly, as the title suggests, to those concerned with the environment. L. B. Wallerstein, Office of Environment and Safety U.S. Department of Transportation, USA
TWENTY FIVE YEARS OF ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT 1950 TO 1975 by David Morawetz. The World Bank, 1977, pp. xi 125. Cloth $3.50. The book u n d e r r e v i e w c o n s i s t s of t h e I n t r o d u c t i o n , five c h a p t e r s , a statistical Appendix and the List of Igeferences. Before the introduction, a Foreward is written, by the Vice President of the World Bank, H. B. Chenery, and Tile Acknowledgment of D. Morawetz. The critical review of a quarter century of development experience is one of the main priorities in the World Bank's research program aiming at evaluating the results of international development policy in order to facilitate the efficient reassessment of the respective policymaking methods and techniques. In this abundantly documented study (with a statistical appendix, references, tables and a figure which altogether cover about half of the book), Professor Morawetz accomplishes a most difficult task in presenting the dynamic lines and many of the specific trends within the combined international efforts to eradicate poverty, which are included in the rather fluid expression "Economic Development." 118
In the Introduction, the author is stressing that "estimates of gross national product, or GNP, per capita in developing countries must be treated with caution.... The use of exchange rates rather than purchasing power parities to convert estimates in national currencies to a single common denominator (usually U.S. dollars) seriously overstates the real income gap separating rich and poor nations." This measurement problem is indirectly overcome in the study by examining the growth of a particular country over time, rather than in attempting comparisons among countries at a moment of time. This diachronic approach applied to each country is realistic enough and Professor Morawetz succeeds in giving the reader the overall view of the forest without being obstructed by the trees. Chapter I (The ChangingObjectives of Development)deals with the "sharp shift" of development objectives effectuated since the beginningof the last decade. The maximization of GNP per capita as an aim must be completed with parallel targets aiming at improving the income distribution, increasing employment and fulfilling "basic needs." T h i s reorientation arises out of structural socioeconomic changes in the developing countries themselves. In many of them, rapid growth has been accompanied by increased regional or personal income inequalities. Chapter 2 (Growth) analyzes the growth performance in developing countries during the period 1950-1975. According to the author, this is marked by three outstanding characteristics: rapid average growth, wide diversity of experience, and increasing disparity between richer and poorer developing countries. But (and this is a meaningful assertainment) "it is not true at the average level that the initially poorer have got poorer." Chapter 3 (The Reduction of Poverty) is devoted to this chronic disease of mankind. In this context, very interesting is the analysis of relative and absolute poverty, particularly in combination with the concepts of the absolute and relative gap in growth as exposed in the previous Chapter 2. Chapter 4 (Self-Reliance and Economic Independence) contains a lot of useful information. Finally, Chapter 5 (Conclusions, Hypotheses and Questions) summarizes the quintessence of the study, but in a rather concise form, under eloquent subtitles: Many Roads Lead to Development, but..., Decentralization and Entrepreneurship, Growth and Poverty, Redistribution before Growth?, Political Stability, Costs, Expectations. In several parts of the book and especially in several tables, David Morawetz gives information and data of importance to regional science. Anyway the book under review cannot be characterized as a book on regional science. Concluding, we can say that this study, entrusted to Professor Morawetz by the World Bank but expressing his own personal views, is a highly reliable source of information and a well-founded analysis of facts and concepts and evolutions. A rewarding book. Pan Mavrakis Technical University of Athens Greek Productivity Centre, Greece
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ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT IN LATIN AMERICAby Jeanine Swift. St. Martin's Press, 1978, pp. 154. Cloth $12.95; Paperback $5.95. As indicated by the title, this book is about Latin America. However, it is not about economic development. It is about the reverse, or "underdeveloping." The author's viewpoint is that Latin America is "underdeveloping (which) implies a process not of improvement at a rate that for some reason is slow but, rather, of distorted growth or even deterioration." This flies in the face of reported growth in aggregate real income and real income per capita in several Latin American countries over the past few decades. Brazil and Mexico are cases in point. The reconciliation of apparently conflicting facts is accomplished by studying measures other than the simple ratio of GNP to population. The true measure of development is in the distribution of the gains. The authors focus is on measures which show a picture of stagnation or even decline--increasing inequality in the distribution of income, high or increasing unemployment and underemployment, control of the country by domestic elite and/or military, or worse, foreigners. Finally reference is made to the decline in absolute living standards for large parts of the population in many Latin American countries. The book is unabashedly Neo-Marxian in outlook. The author, whose genuine concern for the masses is obvious from the preface to the final page, offers a solution rooted in "radical social change" and ultimately some benevolent but undefined socialist form of government. The broad sweep of history, the interactions of institutions, and social conflict lead the author to the conclusion that what has been tried has not worked and, given the socio-politicoeconomic environment, never will yield economic development that is lasting, broadly enjoyed and worthwhile. The author's purpose, though it is not clearly spelled out, is to shed light on why Latin America cannot develop given the current circumstances. There are eight chapters. The first three provide the basic setting for studying Latin American economic development. The first chapter concerns the geography and demographics of the area, and the role of the military and the Catholic Church. The second chapter presents a standard review of growth models found in most development textbooks. Modelsfrom Adam Smith to W. A. Lewis (the recent Nobel Laureate) are presented and criticized. The pace is rapid, the discussion non-technical and, on occasion, rather sloppily done. One gets the feeling that even if this section had been done better that it would not alter the basic conclusion--that the models included suffer from a basic and pervasive malady. T h e y abstract from the historical process and assume a historical vacuum. The work of strategists Hirschman and Rosenstein-Rodan is presented as afflicted by the same terminal disease. Even Rostow with his stages is dispatched as not viable, even though he uses the historical approach, because he does not allow for differences between countries which the author feels important. Enter Marx with the broad sweep of history, a framework which is sufficiently flexible to explain how societies reached their present state. Marx's propellants df change (the forces of production and the relations of production) differ from country to country and society to society and, ergo, are adaptable to the Latin American scene. To facilitate the understanding of this, Swift then recounts the history of the South American continent from 1492 to the period of independence. This is interesting as it traces the rise and fall of native civilizations as well as suggesting the implications which follow. Two aspects of particular importance are Spanish (where are the Portuguese, Germans, etc.?) rule and Spanish administration which are pictured as authoritarian, graft ridden, feudal and 120
restrictive. The state is in league with the Church, though the latter is rather well meaning and benevolent. The Church serves as landlord and financier, and unwittingly, perhaps, helps the local power structue plunder the continent of its investible surplus. Thus for three hundred years what development took place favored the Mother Country, the Church or the ruling class. Chapter four discusses the export boom which ended after World War I, and its failure to fuel long lasting development. The reorientation toward import substitution is reviewed along Prebisch lines and uses the Chilean economy as an example of the bitter fruit of this technique--failure due to the restrictive size of the market and lack of financial resources. The abortive attempts at integration since the 1960s are reviewed briefly. P l a n s were ambitious, successes modest. The last four chapters provide the more empirical section of the book. First, Swift discusses the role of the multinational corporations (MNC), an agent of imperialism. The MNC is viewed as counterproductive since its ascendance to power has been followed by the increased inequality, greater military control and foreign intervention in various economies. In addition the investments have often been capital intensive resulting in less, not more, employment. Finally rather than providing savings from global operations, the MNC repatriates profits at such a rate through legal (though unethical) methods, that it actually is a detriment to most countries' balance of payments. In addition it often plays one country against another by threatening to pull out, etc. Chapters six and seven deal with the more basic needs of the developing economies whether in Latin America or anywhere else. What is required is a technology which can absorb the unskilled, greater equality of income distribution and more food for the masses. The technology used is either nonexistent or inappropriate to the natural resource endowments. The income is concentrated and shows signs of getting worse. The shortage of food is the result of land tenure arrangements and misguided govenment policy which holds prices down makin production unprofitable. The attempts at land reform in Chile and Mexico are viewed as unsuccessful as they did not touch the masses. Finally (what book about LatinAmerican would be complete without it?) there is a discussion of the Monetarist-Structuralist inflation controversy. There's nothing new here, but most readers will find the half-hearted swipes at Milton Friedman somewhat irritating. The subject of the book is germane to regional science since it relies on the interdisciplinary approach by utilizing the skills of several of the social sciences. The topic is important and the fate of millions of literally starving persons cannot be dismissed lightly. The style of the book is much too rapid. More credence could be given to the author's views had the ideas been developed more carefully and at greater length. The reader can neither accept nor reject the author's conclusions since the evidence presented is often dated or incomplete or both. This is, of course, no fault of the author since a fact of life in studying developing countries is that data are often not available. The author's conclusion sounds almost plaintive. Centuries of foreign rule, mutually supportive Church-State relations, misguided policy and, finally, the rise of the MNC have conspired to prevent development. The capitalistic approach, in the author's judgment, has not brought development. Therefore, radical social reform must be undertaken to get development for the people. Unfortunately it is exactly in places where such reform has been attempted that repression has been the greatest. The sacrifices necessary for development cannot be avoided. They can only be lessened in the present by lengthening the process. 121
It is difficult to accept all of the author's conclusions without further elaboration of the ideas involved. However, it does present a significant opposing view of the problems of Latin America. It will be extremely useful to those teaching Lati American studies, or those whose interest is economic development and who wish to focus on one area. Lawrence F. Ziegler The University of Texas at Arlington, USA
NEW RESEARCH ON THE ROLE OF ALCOHOL AND DRUGS IN ROAD ACCIDENTS by Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, 1978, pp. 151. Cloth. This OECD Road Research publication is a review of research findings on alcohol, drugs and traffic safety, with special attention to countermeasure programmes. It is an update of an earlier (1968) OECD publication on this same subject. The current publication is divided into four main sections--difficulties in research METHODOLOGY, studies on ALCOHOL and on DRUGS, and the COUNTERMEASURES of industry and government to improve traffic safety. The emphasis throughout the report is on the sociological-psychologicalphysiological aspects of the alcohol and drug impairment problem. Human error (both driver and pedestrian) results in 80% to 90% of all road traffic accidents. While research on the effects of alcohol and its role in traffic accidents has been well documented and is recognized at the government level in the form of countermeasure legislation, this is not the case for drugs in general, nor for the effects of combinations of the two. There has been some success in reducing traffic fatalities in recent years. However,lack of sound scientific data, in the v i e w of the authors has made it difficult to evaluate such countermeasures as driver breath tests or attempts to modify driving practices. As well, experience has shown that the apparent effectiveness of government programs changes over time. Drugs present even more complex problems. There are no known correlations between blood levels of drugs and recognized degrees of driving impairment. This lack of quantitative evidence makes it difficult not only to document the rationale for countermeasures but also to set out what form such measures should take. One gets the impression that for both alcohol and drugs we have much more to learn. The very specialized nature of this publication makes for a limited audience. With the exception of references to a number of traffic studies in OECD countries, there is little of immediate interest to the generalist. It does not pursue any defined regionaI science themes. Rather, its appeal is to the government or industry r o a d safety specialist, whose prime concern is behavioural research or countermeasure legislation. The organization and content of the publication is good. A number of topics are covered in a thorough fashion. This is more than an annotated bibliography; it is a progress report of work underway. Researchers are reaching out for new ideas and methods, recognizing the limitations of the present state of the art. This publication would be a useful addition to graduate courses in transportation research and planning. While the authors do meet their own stated objectives, one detects a dissatisfaction with the present lack of clear answers. New research horizons are being set. 122
There is little that is new in this publication on "new research," rather, it is a compendium of research that might not normally be available to the transportation specialist. One would hope that when it is time for the next installment of this history of alcohol and drug research, in the eighties that quantifiable results will be more forthcoming. J. L. Courtney Transport Canada Ottawa, Canada
THE THIRD WORLD: PREMISES OF U.S. POLICY edited by W. Scott Thompson. Institute for Contemporary Studies, 1978, pp. XV, 332. Paper $5.95. The major objective of this book is to examine problems of Third World countries, considering both internal conditions and international relations. The stimulus for this volume comes from demand for a New International Economic Order which has raised the Third World as a topic of political and moral controversy. American foreign policy is seemingly ill-prepared to deal with the emergence of the Third World as a political entity. Arguments range from our responsibility for Third World poverty to the determination that the Third World has no strategic importance in U.S. relations with the Soviet Union and therefore little importance should be attached to recent Soviet military intrusion in Africa. The book is not a prescription for policy, but an attempt to examine some premises for policy. The volume is divided into five parts and there are a total of fifteen articles. Part one consists of three articles of an introductory nature, the first of which is by the editor. Thompson calls for taking stock of our interests in the Third World and evaluating critically the assumptions on which our policies are based. It is suggested that we look more carefully at what would comprise good policies. The remaining contributions to part one evaluate U.S.-Soviet strategy with respect to the Third World and wrestle with the whole problem of defining the so-called Third World and non-aligned nations. Some of the myths and realities of relations between developed and Third World nations are analyzed. Part two consists of five articles dealing with the social and economic realities of the Third World. It is argued that the "Third World" is a misnomer and in reality there are only two worlds, the haves and the have nots. Grouping countries of such wide diversity under one label tends to conceal the plight of the poorest. An interesting review of Third World military involvement in politics is provided, elucidating varying degrees of control and variable amounts of violence, repression and governing ability. It is argued that Third World countries are not as constrained in development by lack of capital and resources as they are by the insufficient ambition, energy and skills. Rather than the West causing Third World poverty, contact with the West is the basis in many areas of prosperity. The problematic consequences of ethnic variation for the task of nationbuilding and social solidarity are analyzed crossculturally and crosstemporally. Third World nations, once viewed as victims of racism, demonstrate conditions in which people of varying ancestry, culture, religion, race or language hate, oppose and oppress each other. In the final selection in part two, the reasons for the popularity of federalism in so many Third World countries is examined. 123
Part three contains two selections which deal with international affairs. Tile "Strategy of Inaction" with respect to Soviet expansion in the Third World is examined and rejected. It is suggested that the U.S. aggressively confront Soviet imperialism. An argument is also made for the United States to get more involved with human rights in Soviet Central Asia, the idea being to give them a problem to worry about close to home. Part four includes four articles which concern the economic problems of Third World countries. Dependency theory is discussed and an effective argument is made that imperialism also had good aspects for developing countries. Dependency theory simply fails to take account of reality in terms of levels of development and the historical record. The origins of the New International Economic Order are described and it is suggested that the NIEO has the potential to damage permanently the global economic machine that produced the wealth that the Third World so much wants to share. It is argued that implementation of the NIEO will not lead to substantial economic gains for the Third World. The NIEO has the potential of generating a revolution or rising expectatons. The importance of private capital to Third World Development is discussed and it is argued that the major problems result from conditions within the poor nations, e.g., instability, expropriation and inequitable taxation. Part five provides the editor's concludingremarks. It is suggested that for policy purposes there is no Third World, rather a world of regions and countries with which it is in our interest to deal separately. Attention is called to the large role of the military in most of these countries and to the low level of human rights. The topic of this book falls primarily within the realm of international relations and political science. Reviewingrecent articles published by the various regional science journals, the material in this volume does not seem closely related. The overall quality of the book is quite good. It is well organized and individual contributions are sound. There is some tendency for redundancy in some sections as various authors make similar arguments. However, this is not a major shortcoming. Content is relevant to world affairs, especially in light of recent Soviet activities in Afghanistan and the situation in Iran. Also there seems to be little doubt among most scholars of international relations that the United States needs to carefully reevaluate our diplomatic policy toward the Third World. Thompson has met his goal of providing the reader with a sound evaluation of the Third Worm and its various problems. From this work one should gain a clearer understanding of diplomatic problems and needs. Although the book contributes little to the development of regional science in either philosophy or application, the volume should be quite interesting to political scientists and to some political geographers and international economists. William V. Ackerman California State College, San Bernardino, USA
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THE SCIENTIFIC USE OF FACTOR ANALYSIS IN BEHAVIORAL AND LIFE SCIENCES by Raymond B. Cattel. Plenum Press, 1978, pp. XXII, 618. Cloth $32.50. Factor analysis is widely used in the analysis of regional data, as well as of data on settlements and urban districts. It is a method very well suited to handle problems in which many data are available on a great number of observation units and the first step of the research aims to find out the structure of this large data set, i.e., the basic dimensions according to which the observation units are differentiated. T h a t is the reason for the rapid development of factorial ecology. Therefore all users of factor analysis must welcome a new presentation of factor analysis, like the book of Cattel. It consists of two parts, the first being a general introduction to the basic concepts at a level that can be understood by those who are mathematically not very sophisticated, and the second going into more advanced areas and requiring more mathematical knowledge. As compared to the other similar book on the methodology of factor analysis, writeen by R. J. Rummel (Applied Factor Analysis, Northwetern University Press, 1970), it has the drawback that the examples of application and the whole way of thinking of Cattel is related to psychological problems, namely scores on different tests of a large number of individuals, and the reader interested in regional and urban problems must always reformulate the argumentation in terms of his own problems, which are similar in nature, but not completely identical with the problems handled in psychology by factor analysis. Nevertheless it is worthwhile for the researcher of regional and urban problems to work through this book, and it contains many most interesting mathematical explanations and interpretations which cannot be found in other similar works, and also because the viewpoint of Cattel on several questions is different from that of the authors of other books. I would like to mention here some of these, without pretending to judge whether the viewpoint of Cattel or that of other researchers is correct. First of all, Cattel very decidedly rejects principal component analysis, the method which is widely used in sociological, regional and urban studies as a mathematically easier and more elegant substitute for common factor analysis. However, according to Cattel, principal component analysis, which does not distinguish common and unique factors explaining the variation of the observed variables and in consequence calculates as many components, as the number of the variables were, is completely misplaced from the point of view of the behavioral and life sciences, as they deal with problems where there are some common factors behind the variables, but there are indeed unique factors also which influence the values of the particular variables. He also prefers to use the expresison "broad factor" instead of "common factor," as the factors found by the method of factor analysis used to influence a certain number of variables, i.e., a broad category of them, but not all of them, so that they are not common for all the variables considered. As he prefers broad factor analysis, he necessarily deals in a very detailed way with the fixing of the communalities of the variables, or alterntively of the number of factors, as this is a central problem of this type of analysis, as contrasted with principal component analysis, where this problem does not arise, or, more exactly, arises only when the researcher decides to take into eonsiderationonly some of the strongest factors and to rotate only these strongest factors. 125
Different methods of rotation are also treated in a very detailed way. A most interesting distinction of rotation by hypothesis-testing and by hopothesiscreating principles is introduced. Cattel is very strongly in favor of permitting oblique factors. The reason is the same as in the case of his advocacy of broad factor analysis versus principal components, namely that in real problems the same factors are indeed correlated. Therefore, in his opinion, it is erroneous to always use uncorrelated orthogonal factors, simply because they are mathematically simpler and cleaner. Also he is not satisfied with the usual method of the interpretation of factors, namely by looking at the variables having the highest positive and negative loadings, as well as those which have no loadings. He considers these as first steps in the interpretation and suggests to analyze second-order loadings, the criterion correlations, manipulative responses of factor scores and the IHD (inductive-hypothetico-deductive) spiral reasoning in which the hypotheses produce designs for new variables whose loadings would be crucial to the hypothesis chosen. In this review only some of the new aspects of this book are mentioned. The knowledge and profound evaluation of these problems and proposed solutions will certainly be very useful for the scientists who use factor analysis, in order to improve their handling of the method. Rudolf Andorka Central Statistical Office, Hungary WELFARE IN RURAL AREAS: THE NORTH CAROLINA-IOWA INCOME MAINTENANCE EXPERIMENT edited by John L. Palmer and Joseph A. Pediman. The Brookings Institution, 1978, pp. 274. Cloth. This book is a review and evaluation of the second major experimental program to directly assist the working poor of the U.S. The first experimental program was designed and implemented to influence incomes of the urban working poor in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. The review and evaluation of that first experiment was published by Brookings in 1975, entitled Work Incentives and Income Guarantees: The New Jersey Negative Income Tax Experiment. This new book reports and evaluates the second experiment conducted for rural working poor families during 1970-1972. The experiment provided income maintenance to a sample of 729 rural working poor families in North Carolina and Iowa. The geographic area from which the sample families and controls were drawn contains about one-third of th U.S. rural poverty population. Income maintenance was characterized by a basic benefit or guarantee and a benefit reduction or tax rate. The guarantee was received by families with no other income and the tax rate was the rate at which benefits were reduced as other income rose. This second experiment focused on rural families and included race categorization, single households, those families headed by females and families of the aged. The experiment was patterned after the one in New Jersey: with the same objectives, similar experimental design and duration. In the second experiment, payments were made bi-weekly and based on monthly reports of income and family size filed by the families. Interviews were conducted quarterly with household members over fifteen years of age, to gain attitudinal and behavioral data. Further information was obtained from schools and other public agencies. 126
With the conclusion of the experiment a conference was called at Brookings in 1977. Nine papers were prepared to review and evaluate this experiment. Essentially, the effects of the experiment were analyzed by regression analysis. A number of outcome variables were analyzed so dependent variables and control variables were entered to standardize for non-experimental differences among treatment groups. The nine papers, with the authors and topics are: Larry L. Orr - Overview and Major Findings D. Lee Bawden and WilliamS. Harrar- Experiment Design and Operation Harold Watts and D. Lee Bawden - The Issues and Lessons Learned Firris Welch - Response of the Self Employed Orley Ashen Felter - Response of Wage Earners Robert T. Michael- Consumption Studies Michael Hannan - Non-Economic Outcomes (Psychological and Sociological Aspects) G. Edward Smith - Policy and Research Implications Marvin M. Smith - Summary of the Conference The papers are thorough reviews and evaluations of eachtopic. ~Fhepapers well present a statement of what was done and found, what was a surprise and what behavior was expected. In company with the New Jersey experiment report, this volume expands the data and analysis of a particular technique for ameliorating poverty. Because of the limited number of large-scale, though sub-national, income aid experiments in the U.S., the reports are vital to initiating understanding of the design of policy and its impact on the working poor both rural and urban. Both reports--of the first and second income maintenance experiments--constitute the best compilation of review and evaluation of policy and impact to date. For regional scientists asked to design and evaluate potential programs to aid the working poor (to uniquely fit regional poverty eircumtances) the book is invaluable. Those aspects of the experiment found to be most worth while (in terms of efficiency and long term aid to the poor) are presented concisely and completely. Those aspects of the experiment found weak (problematical experimental design features and some analytical techniques) are also well defined and can be refined in new programs. For regional scientists called upon to evaluate change of income impacts on regions the book has more general usefulness. The development of the experiment reported here incorporates lessons learned from the earlier New Jersey experiment. Thus the two reports describe policy evolution. Modification of evaluation techniques accompanies in an evolutionary fashion the evolution policy. The book is an important record of a large-scale carefully designed experiment in income enhancement, written by outstanding scholars. It is concise and well written; these two additional attributes make it an outstanding contribution to the analysis of regional income modification. Charles A. Berry Department of Economics University of Cincinnati, USA
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ECONOMIC DEMOCRACY: WORKERS' PARTICIPATION IN CHILEAN INDUSTRY 1970-1973 by Juan G. Espinosa and Andrew S. Zimbalist. Academic Press, Inc., 1978, pp. xix, 211. Cloth $14.00. This is a book about the Chilean experience of worker participation at the enterprise level under the Allende Government. The analysis is put forward by two persons who lived in the country during the years 1970-1973, 'to observe the functioning of the socialized enterprises first hand.' One of the major reforms in policy of the Allende Government was the creation of a large socialized sector of the economy. An interview of forty firms (or 24.4% of the universe) in the Central Valley region was conducted to collect information for a set of seventyfive social, political, technological and economic variables for a series of statistical analysis, ranging from multiple regression and correlation to varimax factor analysis. Only information of thirty-five firms was included in the actual numerical calculation. The first two chapters of the book are devoted to an overview of worker participation in both the Capitalist and Socialist countries. Chapters 3 and 4 provide a discussion of the Chilean situation, while chapter 5 explains the methodology adopted in the statistical analysis in chapter 6. Chapter 7 refers specially to the impact of worker participation on the economic and social performance of the 35 enterprises in the sample. The last chapter includes a usual summary of the study and some commentaries and conclusions of a more general nature. These eight chapters were designed to provide an explanation of (a) the strategic factors which influence the degree of worker participation attained; and (b) the e f f e c t s of different degrees of worker participation on the economic and social performance of industrial undertakings in Chile. Although how and why worker participation was encouraged during the Allende period is more of an ideological issue rather than academic, the results obtained in the study are not far from normal expectation. Through a series of laborous~and well-designed statistical elaboration, the study concludes that worker participation is found to have yielded positive e f f e c t s not only in economic terms but also in terms of human and social development in Chile. To the reviewer, the study reconfirms an ancient Oriental belief that the provision of a sense of belonging and security is fundamental to any successful human organization. It is not a mystery today, for example, why Japanese are so devoted to their jobs. Voluntary devotion in the part of the workers is a key factor to Japanese economic success. Itwas reported by a large Japanese firm recently that, on average, each of its workers made more than one constructive suggestion a year. In the Orient, worker participation is seen as an essential element in constructing social relationships. (The authors also acknowledged this.) Increase in productivity and profit is a natural consequence. Worker participation justified only on grounds of productivity and profit may not help to reduce the employer-employee ideological gap. Notwithstanding the fact that the conclusions the study drives home are somehow expected, the book is a valuable piece of work. The well-designed survey, the careful quantification of 'qualitative' variables, the handling of a large group of variables in a rather succinct and elegant manner, and the highly 'readable' sophisticated quantitative analysis all help to make the book presentable. The argument that qualitative variables, such as worker participation in enterprise management and ideology, are quantifiable, as illustrated in this book, is surely an encouraging effort in modern social science research. As social 128
science research is and cannot be value-free, the quantification of nonquantitative information can be easily used as a means to test the significance of well-designedbut distorted hypotheses. However, no implication whatsoever is suggested here that the authors have made such a statistical error intentionally. Most of the variables included in the study are in fact quantitative in nature. The Appendix II of chapter 5 regarding the weighting procedure and the point system of the index of worker participation is useful in understanding the structure of the numerical analysis. Hence, it is recommended to those who want to proceed (with extreme care!) along this line of study. This is a richly documented book, in which the authors portray the complicated process of enterprise democratization and the socioeconomic impacts of increased worker participation in management in Chile during the years 1970-1973. Enterprise democratization and worker participation are two central management issues for the 1980s, which obviously deserved careful examination. To this, the work of Espinosa and Zimbalist is welcome. For those who are interested in the political economy of Chilean development per se, the book is also informative. L. H. Wang Department of Geography Nanyang University, Singapore
ECONOMIES AND SOCIETIES IN LATIN AMERICA: A GEOGRAPHICAL INTERPRETATION by P. R. Odell and D. A. Preston. John Wiley & Sons, 1978, pp. ix, 289. Cloth $25.50. The objective of this book is to provide the reader with the essential features of the geographical organization of the economies and societies in Latin America. The book is primarily concerned with why human activities have occurred where they do in Latin America and with the consequences of these locational patterns on the societies involved. Odell and Preston argue that the patterns of development and underdevelopment in Latin America are best explained as reflections of the nature of the exploitative relationship that exists between Latin America and the world's industrialized nations, and between rich and poor areas within Latin American countries. The book is divided into two parts. Part one authored by Preston, deals with "Major Themes in the Social Geography of Latin America." Part two examines "Major Themes in the Economic Geography of Latin America." This section is authored by Odell. The five chapters included in part one contain material on 1) Human Groups and their Landscapes, 2) Types of Rural Environment, 3) Characteristics of the Urban Environment, 4) Land Reform, and 5) Colonization and Human Mobility. Part two consists of five chapters concerned with 1) Antecedents to the Contemporary Geography of Economic Activity, 2) The Economic Geography of the Exploitative Economy, 3) Regional Imbalance in Economic Development, 4) Towards a New Economic Geography of Latin America, and 5) The Economic Geography of Latin American Cooperation and Integration. Part one of this book is of little significance to Regional Science as determined by recent publications in the major Regional Science journals. Part 129
two is much more relevant and although not highly theoretical, it provides solid background in problems of regional inequalities in economic development and some evaluation of various geographical development theories. I found the book well organized and well written. The authors have carefully researched their topic and provide the reader with several well chosen and interesting case studies. The case studies are accompanied by good maps. The content of the book is quite relevant to an up-to-date analysis of the Geography of Latin America. Case studies are current and problem analyses are based on present situations. The authors have met their stated objectives. The human and economic geography of Latin America is adequately explained and a believable case is made for present development patterns being largely sculptured by the exploitative relationship between industrial nations and Latin America. Although this book does not make an original contribution to theoretical regional science, it is basically a solid, well-written text book, providing the reader with a sound, and up-to-date analysis of the economic and social geography of Latin America. I found the book to be quite good. It would be an excellent text for Latin American Geography at the undergraduate level and a useful background volume for graduate students. The authors provide a substantial bibliography at the end of each chapter. William V. Ackerman California State College San Bernardino, California, USA
TOWNS IN SOCIETIES; ESSAYSIN ECONOMIC HISTORY AND HISTORICAL SOCIOLOGY edited by Philip Abrams and E. A. Wrigley. Cambridge University Press, 1978, pp. viii, 344. Hard Cover $19.95. The book contains 12 papers either submitted at the annual conference of the "Past and Present Society" in 1975 or previously published in the journal of this society. Their subjects can roughly be divided into 2 groups. The first group comprises the introductory and the closing papers, both of a general character. The introductory paper deals with current theories on urbanisation and towns' definition, showing their inadequacy in grasping the notion of towns and "townness" as well as in presenting towns' role in shaping the society. The closing paper deals with one theory only, namely with the concept of "generic" and "parasitic" towns and their influence on a country's economy. The author is opposed to this theory and points out the weakness of arguments on towns' parasitism and the validity of such simplistic dichotomy. Both papers should be regarded as a theoretical framework for the remaining 10 essays which in turn are arranged into 2 categories of specific case studies. (Besides its interesting originality this organisation greatly contributes to better understanding of the subjects and it makes a whole from a series of strongly differentiated papers.) The papers in the first category present analyses of towns' growth or decay in relation to the changes in the respective countryside in classical and Medieval Europe. The second category analyzes the towns' development under conditions of early capitalism in England and in Germany; in this group can also be included a paper considering Chinese towns. The time span of this group covers about 20 centuries and ends in 1914, i.e., the date which marks the end of the old European model of uncontrolled capitalism. 130
It is impossible to discuss in detail each of the papers in this short review not only because of the variety of subjects ranging from ancient Rome to the role of Chinese cities since the Sung Dynasty, but also because of the richness of materials included. Howeverthe careful selection of subjects should be noted as all authors are pinpointing the unity of towns and societies within which the social and economic processes wind up in reality of a particular country and time. Several basic assumptions seem to underlie this selection. The first common thread running through all the essays in this book is that towns are perceived as fields of action integral to a country or a region and that on these fields the social and economic interactions and contradictions are exposed with great clarity. Instead of considering the existence of analysed towns in abstraction by withdrawing them from their "Hinterlands," the authors carry on the comparative analysis that allows us to follow the dynamism of forces engaged in the processes of urbanization. The social systems large enough to encompass state, society, or mode of production are in the view of the authors of primary importance and towns are perceived as sites in which these systems worked out the most effectively. The traditional dualism town-countryside is abandoned and in its place we see introduced a territorial wholeness with crucial poles of actions. From the point of view of Regional Science such an approach is obviously very advantageous as it permits to explain the embedded relations between the urban and the rural, between the spatial spread of innovations and ossification of traditions and their territorial structures until new modes of production, consumption and exchange replace the older and obsolete forms. The second common thread can be found in the exposal of the mechanism of socioeconomic transformations, towns being their primary catalizators. To give but one example of the technique exposing the processes of change, the Christopher R. Friedrichs' paper analyses the centrifugal forces of "Verlagssystem" introduced in German cities in the 16th and 17th centuries. This system played on social and economic values and was the main factor in creating a new social class of "Kleinburgers" and town patriciate from one medieval group of craftsmen. All papers are very well documented, some of them having more thaa 80 footnotes to 25 pages of text. Details are abundantly adduced by the authors as illustration or argument, but they are well chosen and do not overwhelm the reader. Very well written and reflecting modern dynamic approach this book makes for stimulating reading and its fascination lasts even after it has been put down. Marie A. Jarochowska Departement de Geographie Universite du Quebec a Montreal Canada
MACRO-ECONOMIC EVALUATION OF ENVIRONMENTAL P R O G R A M M E S by Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. OECD, Paris, 1978, pp. 194. Paper $11.00. Although numerous environmental questions have already been settled in the developed countries, many fundamental decisions remain to be made. Thus, it is appropriate that the macro-impact of national environmental programs be evaluated. The purpose of the volume is to discuss the usefulness of macro131
economic evaluations of environmental programs both for program development and policy formulation. It is a followup to a 1974 OECD study which intended to compare the demands of pollution control with other claims on national resources. T h i s study should be of some interest to economists and to environmental scientists working in the field of economic impact. It provides the perspective of OECD on an important problem of concern to all countries with particular attention to the unique problems of the developed countries. The report consists of 17 pages of introductory-summary material and five annexes describing the models and case studies. F o u r case studies are presented: Japan, Italy, the Netherlands and the United States. The case study material apparently has been assembled from contributed national papers but the authors are not identified. Withthis approach, it is difficult to draw conclusions regarding the validity of the models or the approaches used. The volume should probably be regarded as a very preliminary study whose primary value is to call attention to the pertinent literature and programs in the four countries studied. The models cover different time periods: Italy, 1975; Netherlands, 19731985; USA, 1976-1983; Japan I, 1972-1977; Japan If, 197-1985. Resultsobtained show changes in consumer and export prices, changes in consumption and investment, levels of production, employment, exports and imports. In short, the coverage of the presentation is about what would be expected. The reader should be prepared for a very preliminary volume. Anyone expecting an exhaustive presentation willbe disappointed. An overall conclusion is that the models show price increases due to pollution control to be not very large, but significant enough to reduce private consumption and exports, even after considering the multiplier effects of additional industrial expenditures. The models are able to adequately consider secondary and multiplier effects of increases in production costs due to equipment acquisition. They can consider somewhat the effects of technological changes in industries involved, but they fall short of adequately considering the direct effects of reducing pollution levels and the induced effects on consumers, on production conditions and on society's response through corrective measures. No bylines are given for the entire volume or its parts. Inquiries are to be directed to the Director of Information, OECD, 2, rue Andre-Pascal, 75775 Paris CEDEX 16, France. It is apparently a staff study, written by committee, and lacking the consistency and homogeneity that single authorshiip and rigorous editing would provide. Nevertheless, the volume is well worth adding to the shelf of either the departmental library or that of the individual environmental economist. Neil S. Grigg North Carolina Department of Natural Resources & CommunityDevelopment, USA
THE ELECTRICITY SUPPLY INDUSTRY IN OECD COUNTRIESby International Energy Agency. Organizationfor Economic Co-Operation and Development, 1978, pp. XVIII, 188. Paper $9.00. The Electricity Supply Industry in OECD Countries presents a survey of the electric utility industry of the OECD nations. The purpose of the survey is to provide data required for policy studies in the field of electricity supply and demand. It presents historical data for the years 1974 to 1976 and forecasts 132
prepared as far in the future as 1990. The forecast was prepared by member countries in 1977. This book is literally a data book with little analysis of justification of the data presented in it. It seems that the most important part of the review of this book consists of summarizing the type of data presented in it. Most of the data in the book has been presented in 7 tables which are briefly described below. Electricity consumption in: iron and steel industry, non-ferrous Table 1: metals industry, chemical industry, transportation sector, household sector, commercial and services sector, agriculture sector, and sundries; 2) Transmissionlosses; 3) maximumpower supplied (analogous to national system peak); and 4) utilization period of maximum power supplied (this number could give national load factor). Table 2: 1) Net maximum capacity on 31st of December of public utilities and auto producers; and 2) the capacity is also broken down by fuel type, i.e., by conventional thermal, nuclear and hydro. Table 3: 1) Thermal capacity unavailable at the time of maximum demand; 2) importation and exportation of capacity at the time of maximum demand; and 3) net actual available capacity at the time of maximum demand. Table 4: 1) Gross and net generation by major fuel types, i.e., by conventional thermal, nuclear and hydro; 2) imports and exports of energy; and 3) total net energy supplied to net work. Table 5: 1) Required investment, in national currency and U.S. dollars, in production, transmission and distribution and miscellaneous categories; 2) investment in production facilities is further broken down by fuel type, i.e., by solid fuels, liquid fuels, gas, nuclear and hydro. Table 6: Amountsof different fuels, i.e., high grade coal, low grade coal, brown coal, peat and fuel wood, liquid fuels, natural gas, manufactured gas and other fuels consumed for electric generation, their heat value and amount of electricity generated from each fuel. Table 7: Electricity consumption is given for various industries. Some of the industries are the same as listed in Table 1. The new industries included in this table are coal mining, miningexcluding coal, transport equipment, fabricated metal products and machinery and equipment, nonmetallic mineral products, food and beverage and tobacco, textile and leather, wood and wood products and, paper and paper products printing. The comprehensiveness or the utility of a given data book is an open question, since its usefulness depends on the data needs of its user. Nevertheless, the book seems to have touched upon most of the important variables required to define the electric industry of a country or a region. The data presented in this book provides a quick overview of the size and the nature of electric utility industry in the OECD countries and thus the book constitutes an important source of information. However, the utility of this book may have been somewhat overshadowed because of the reasons discussed below. Data on the same variables are scattered around in different tables. For example, data on electric demand (or load, measured in MW) is scattered in table 1, 2, and 3; data on electricity consumptionis presented in tables i and 7. This method of data presentation creates problems in finding and interpreting the data. Also, it has lead to unnecessary repetition of some data. 133
The projections of future capacity show a large increase in nuclear generation. However, with today's anti-nuclear sentiments, these projections seem to have become obsolete. For example, in the State of New York the electrical industry (New York Power Pool) has proposed to add 8,911 MW of nuclear capacity between 1980 and 1994. However, the State of New York is unlikely to grant approval for any new nuclear plants. In recent times the regional policy issues regarding electric utilities are being more focused around the cost of services, fuel mix for generation, environmental acceptability and reliability both due to capacity restraints and disruption in supplies of generating fuels. Inclusion of data on environmental parameters, cost and supply sources of generating fuels and cost of electric service could have enhanced the usefulness of The Electricity Supply Industry in OECD Countries. Ajay K. Sanghi State Energy Office Albany, New York, USA
WESTERN CANADA SINCE 1870: A SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY AND GUIDE by Alan F. J. Artibise. University of British Columbia Press, 1978, pp. xvi, 294. Paper $6.95; cloth $17.50. It is not easy to review a bibliographic survey. Perhaps this is why such surveys are more often included in the newsletters of academic associations or the announcements of book companies as "mentions by title" rather than as material for the book-review sections of journals. Yet they serve a valuable purpose. Sometimes, I feel, their value surpasses that of some of the "textbooks" which appear. This compendium on Western Canada by Alan Artibise, by its own avowed intent (p. xi), "is designed to provide students, teachers, researchers, librarians, and the general public with a ready and reliable guide to significant literature dealing with Western Canada." As such, it is perhaps more correctly capsuled under the heading of "regional studies" rather than "regional science." It "includes work completed in such diverse fields as (history), political science, geography, economics, anthropology, sociology and native, ethnic, urban and environmental studies" (pp. xi-xii). It is a selective bibliography, well annotated and with entries to the year 1977. Regional study of Western Canada has exploded in the 1960s and 1970s. Perhaps tile only way for one individual to attempt to assess whether this work meets the author's objective of providing a guide to significant literature is to take an area or areas of study with which he has some familiarity and to check the appropriate section(s) of the bibliography in this context. I have attempted to do this for the parts of the book entitled "Saskatchewan" and "A Brief Guide to Western Canadian Studies." In both instances I satisfied myself that the coverage of important literature sources was thorough and that the bibliographic references were accurate. A further check of the author index failed to unearth any personages, significant in my mind at least, who had been omitted. In terms of the organization of the book there is little to quarrel with. Everyone has a different preference in such matters. The content, within the limitations set by the author, is appropriate, and it is only as one approaches the fringes of the various subjects defined for inclusion (in the interface between 134
agriculture and climate, for instance) that the occasional omission comes to light. The absence of any direct reference in the section on the economic development of British Columbia to that province's vital tourism and outdoor recreation industry is surprising also. But these are not the central concerns of the book. As the author recognizes, each reader will find some omissions in his own areas of special interst. Overall,however, I do not believe there are too many. Errors of commission were not easy to find either. Reviewers must satisfy themselves that there are some! Amongthe illustrations, Plate 11 is badly described as "Grain Elevators on the C.P.R. Mainline, Lewvan, Saskatchewan." The elevators are hardly visible, viewed obliquely from the air against a backdrop of village and fields--scarcely a tradition of prairie art, which nearly always sees them against the sky--and Lewvan is many miles (kilometres?) removed from the Canadian Pacific Railway's main line. But one nit picked is enough; I would not want to be labelled as a detractor! In conclusion, this is a most successful bibliography,and I can think of few people better qualified than Alan Artibise, who has developed a solid reputation in the field of Western Canadian studies, to carry it out. It will certainly become an important prop on the end of one of my bookshelves--the ends of a bookshelf in my opinion being more important than the dustry volumes hidden in the middle. I am sure most other potential users of this book, in and out of Western Canada, will feel the same way. Alexander H. Paul Department of Geography University of Regina, Canada
URBAN MODELS: DIFFUSION AND POLICY APPLICATION by Janet Rothenberg Pack. Regioal Science Research Institute, 1978, pp. xiii, 408. Paper. Research focusing on urban development models for planning has expanded rapidly over the last decade. The dramatic growth in federal funding for state and local planning bodies seeking to design communityprograms has stimulated greater interest in modeling methodologies. More stringent federal review and evaluation requirements for funding, as well as explicit recognition of the functional interdependencies among programs, has reinforced the interest in quantifying policy impacts. In addition, the reseach literature has constantly emphasized the potential utility of such analytical techniques in serving the comprehensive planning needs of government groups faced with increasingly complex coordinated planning challenges. Although a variety of land use, transportation, population forecasting, and employment projection models have been developed, information on the degree to which planning agencies actually incorporate them in the planning and policy design process is scarce. J. R. Pack provides a unique and most welcome examination of government agency utilization of modeling in Urban Models: Diffusion andpolicy Application. The author investigates the extent to which urban development models have been adopted by various planning organizations in the U.S., how they are employed, their influence on policy, as well as the factors affecting their adoption or non-adoption. 135
The systematic discussionsof model use and planner perceptions are based on three sets of data collected between 1973 and 1976. The empirical evidence includes: (1) mailed questionnaire responses from 782 city-regional-county planning agencies collected in 1973, recording the extent of the model use and perceived utility; (2) 1975 mailed questionnaire responses from 414 regional planning agencies that focussed on factors influencing adoption or non-adoption of models; and (3) in-depth case study interviews with 18 regional planning agencies during the 1973-76 period designed to obtain clearer perspectives on the meaning and implications of the aggregate questionnaire findings. The thirteen chapters of the book are organized into two sections. Part I begins with brief discussions of the alleged potential applications of urban models, aspirations of those using them, and analytical limitations of four widely publicized models (EMPIRIC, PLUM, San Francisco CRP,Southwestern Wisconsin LUPDM). Throughan examination of the general planning literature of the 1960s and 1970s (and documents on specific models), the author describes the significant disparity between expectations and modeling capabilities born out of confusion or disagreement regarding the applicability of models. The next four chapters summarize the questionnaire and interview data collected by the author and include analyses of major patterns. Types of agencies adopting/not adopting models, types of models employed how they are applied, agency attitudes toward model utility, and agency sources of information on models are analyzed in detail in Chapter 3. Case study evidence of how models are developed and incorporated into regional planning organizations, the problems faced by planners in using the models, and an author evaluation of the appropriateness of model application are considered in Chapter 4. The economic, political, organizational and informational factors contributing to adoption or non-adoption of models are discussed in Chapter 5. The final chapter of Part I effecively summarizes the empirical findings and develops a number of important conclusionson model use. Part 11 focusses on case study experiences of five regional planning agencies that adopted the EMPIRIC model (Puget Sound Governmental Conference, Atlanta Regional Commission, Metro Washington Council, Twin Cities Metro Council, Boston Regional Planning Project). Chapters 7 and 8 include a description of the case study sampling procedures and an evaluation of the EMPIRIC model as a tool for analyzing and forecasting. The case study investigations r e c o r d background information on the organizational characeristics of the agencies, adoption stimuli, and model use that provide additional perspectives on the generalizations developed previously. The experiences of the agencies reveal the diversity of opinion concerning EMPIRIC's capabilities and the variety of applications associated with one model. Despite the on-going problems of model design, data availability, and costs of implementation, the research results reveal considerable model adoption and favorable evaluations by agencies. "The increased model use in the plan making process is probably the most noteworthy finding. Three factors are important to'an understanding of this change: learning from past failures and development efforts, changes in planning education and the growing number of model advocates in planning agencies, and the expandingplanning mandate which has increased the potential scope for model application." Planner awareness of urban model inadequacies is high, but despite increased use, there has been little change in the conceptual quality of models. Indirect evidence indicates that the quality of planning was increased among agencies adopting models by way of continued discussions of data quality, modeling assumptions and causal relationships. 136
The monograph provides a number of important insights into the use of urban models. Documentationof the problems, frustrations, and positive experiences of model use will be helpful for planning agencies in: (1) deciding whether to employ a particular model and in what context; (2) recognizing the conceptual and analytical limitations of various models; and/or (3) realizing the greatest possible benefits from the modeling approach to problem solving. Identification of factors contributing to the confusion surrounding actual capabilities of models will be useful for model developers in: (1) designing conceptually sound models that are sensitive to the needs of planning agencies; and (2) improving documentation of model utility, particularly the forecasting, impact analysis, and policy evaluation limitations. Urban Models: Diffusion and. Policy Application is a significant contribution to t-he literature on urban development models. The strengths and weaknesses of a variety of models, as they relate to planning needs, are critically evaluated in a balanced and well-organized manner. Forces contributing to the rate and extent of model adoption by government organizations are thoroughly investigated and substantial data are marshalled to support the conclusions. The 40 page bibliography includes an eclectic listing of public agency documents related to model design and implementation that will be a valuable resource for student and faculty researchers involved in modeling efforts. Charles G. Schmidt University of Colorado at Denver, USA
SELECTED WATEI~ IViANAGE)3ENT ISSUES IN LATIN AMERICAN AGRICULTURE edited by Pierre R. Crossan, Ronald G. Cummings and Kenneth D. Frederick. A Resources for the Future book published by the Jonns Hopkins University Press, 1978, pp. xv, 185. Paper $14.95. This book is a product of the Resources for the Future's Latin American program and is written by several authors of U.S. and Latin American origins. Tl~e book makes the basic assumption that in the next few decades policymakers in Latin America will be increasingly challenged by the problem of water scarcity stemming from growing water demands from agriculture and from urbanization. ~I% satisfy these demands, what changes are needed in current agricultural policies? Using case studies, this book deals with several crucial water management issues such as competition between agricultural ana non-agricultural uses, water pricing to encourage more efficient and equitable allocation, optimal uses for crop and fish production, and control of salinity. The book contains seven ci~apters. ']?hefirst two chapters are introduction and an overview, and the remainder deals with water pricing in Peru, irrigated agriculture in Argentina, irrigation and lagoon control in Mexico,salinity control in Mexico, and evaluation of a multi-purpose flood control project in Colombia. The overview provides an excellent analysis of the complex issues in managing water resources development in Latin America. The recurrent theme through this chapter is that water resources in these countries must be managed
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with g r e a t e r flexibility in order to f a c e up with the l o n g - t e r m p r o s p e c t of w a t e r s c a r c i t y . The c o n c e p t of e c o n o m i c e f f i c i e n c y is used throughout the analysis. The t e r m e f f i c i e n c y is defined from the standpoint of the s o c i e t y as a whole rather than from the p r i v a t e w a t e r user. Water use is considered e f f i c i e n t when the present net worth b e n e f i t s are m a x i m i z e d . B e n e f i t s may be simply defined as the discounted net social value of the goods and s e r v i c e s produced by w a t e r , or more broadly to also include non-production values t h a t s o c i e t y may regard as i m p o r t a n t , such as various p a t t e r n s of income distribution or of regional development. The authors note t h a t because of the " f u g i t i v e " n a t u r e of w a t e r and the problem of e x t e r n a l i t y , w a t e r has been s u b j e c t e d to s o c i e t a l controls which are rigid enough to cause i n e f f i c i e n c y in its use and allocation. "Flexibility" is the key word for changes. Prices and g o v e r n m e n t decisions must be flexibte enough to r e f l e c t the social costs of w a t e r in the long run. The f r e e m a r k e t forces must be allowed to o p e r a t e to the e x t e n t possible. I w h o l e h e a r t e d l y share the feeling of the author t h a t w a t e r m a n a g e m e n t in many countries has 0een and is still in the hands of the engineers who are too o f t e n inclined to build to solve problems. It may be c o m f o r t i n g to know that under the newly revised Principles and Standards for e v a l u a t i n g w a t e r r e s o u r c e s p r o j e c t s issued by the U.S. Water R e s o u r c e s Council, a proposed p r o j e c t must be e v a l u a t e d t o g e t h e r with all possible a l t e r n a t i v e s , including n o n - e n g i n e e r i n g solutions, and doing nothing. The case studies p r e s e n t e d in tile book are i n t e r e s t i n g from the point of view of methodology, if not for its f a c t u a l contents. Each case study is a c c o m p a n i e d by a simulation model and n u m e r i c a l d e m o n s t r a t i o n s . Of p a r t i c u l a r i n t e r e s t is tile c o m p r e h e n s i v e and r a t h e r ambitious model p r e s e n t e d in the last c h a p t e r for the e v a l u a t i o n of the flood control p r o j e c t s on the C a u c a River in Colombia. The s o - c a l l e d h y d r o e c o n o m i c model is intended to be a c o m p r e h e n s i v e f r a m e w o r k which can e v a l u a t e hydrologic, hydropower, e c o n o m i c and other data simultaneously. The authors suggest t h a t anyone who is i n t e r e s t e d in their model should c o n t a c t them directly. In sum, I tilink the authors and editors have done an e x c e l l e n t job in d e m o n s t r a t i n g how e c o n o m i c principles may be applied to w a t e r m a n a g e m e n t issues. They have also provided some m a t h e m a t i c a l models of i n t e r e s t . Although the m a n a g e m e n t issues p r e s e n t e d in this book are l i m i t e d to those in Latin A m e r i c a n a g r i c u l t u r e , I found much of the analysis can be applied with equal validity to the U.S. situation. James Tang, Institute for Water Resources U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, USA
VANCOUVER'S FIRST CENTURY: A CITY A L B U M 1860-1960 by Anne Kloppenborg,'Alice Niwinski, Eve Johnson, Robert Gruetter. J. J. Douglas Ltd., 1978, pp. xix, 154. Cloth $19.95. In the last decade an increasing number of authors have used photographs as a major source material to interpret a "place." Photographers have left a rich assortment of visual material that depict the evolution of the British Columbia landscape from the Victorian age to the present. Some photographers have concentrated on technology and development to record the history of man overcoming nature in British Columbia while others have attempted to capture
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the spirit of British Columbia's society. In this volume the editors have attempted to assemble all of the themes recorded by photographers in reconstructing the growth of the city of Vancouver between 1860 and 1960. The city album is organized into eight time frame chapters: 1860-1887, 1887-1900, 1900-1914, 1914-1918, 1918-1929, 1929-1939, 1939-1945 and 19451960. The photographs in each chapter reflect the themes of technology, development and Vancouver's society. For example, in the chapter 1900-1914, Vancouver's "Golden Years" tile editor's choice of photographs range from clearing Shaughnessy Heights with the help of a steam donkey engine, wire rope and gin pole to the development of the built environment of Burnaby Street in the West End and the social side of Vancouver life depicted by the Vancouver Opera House and bathers on English Bay. Each chapter is accompanied by an introductory text to explain the photographic record for that period in Vancouver's history. In addition, commentaries from newspapers and other archival sources are cited to aid in the interpretation of the photographs in e a c h chapter. Within this kind of organizational framework the reader is able to grasp both a literary and photographic image of the growth of Vancouver from a mill town to a metropolitan centre. One other aspect that is part of the organizational structure of the book is the introduction by David Brock, who had various careers as a writer, film-maker and broadcaster and who resided in the city for over sixty years. In his inimitable Brockian literary style he recreates Vancouver's physical, built and societal landscape that he became a part of in the growth process. To appreciate the value of the introduction the non-Vancouverite should save the reading of this part of the book until the very end. The editors and the publishers have certainly achieved their objective of putting together an excellent alaum of photographs that depict tile urban historical growth of Vancouver. In their selection of photographs the editors have been able to acilieve a balance in the themes that reflect urban growth. Similarly, they have cleverly used an organizational framework that co-relates the literary quotes with the photographs. Obviously, the value of the book lies in the photographs. The sources of the photographs are well documented so that tile urban researcher interested in the historical growth of the city will encounter no major obstacle in tracing tile photographic source. However,the major academic problem with tile book lies in the textual material. The introductory text for each chapter is simply a one page series of statements with no discussion, argumentation or bibliography. Similarly the quotes accompanying the photographs merely provide the reader with a brief insight into various topics related to Vancouver's history. This aspect of tile book will not be very beneficial to the serious urban researcher. In summary, this book will be of some aid to urban researchers who are discovering photographs as a useful primary source in their research. As an example of this source, readers of this volume will be able to leisurely grasp Vancouver's growth over a cup of tea and a box of digestive chocolate coated biscuits. Paul M. Koroscil Simon Fraser University British Columbia, Canada
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ESSAYS IN MEMORY OF DUCCION TURIN(1927-1976). CONSTRUCTIONAND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT: PLANNINGOF HUMANSETTLEMENTSedited by O. H. Koeningsberger and S. Croak. Pergamon Press, 1978, pp. 198. Cloth $42.00. (Series: Specialissue of the journal HABITATINTERNATIONAL,vol. 3, Nos. 1/2.) Over the last two and a half decades Duceion Turin has contributed significantly to the scholarly study of human settlements. This book, organized as a posthumous FESTSCIIRIFT, contains about twenty brief papers which necessarily vary in subject matter and quality, since his contributions vary widely from research and educational themes to housing policy formulations and the industrialization of the construction industry. The papers were written by authors from at least a dozen countries reflecting that D. Turin was truly an internationallyknownscholar who spoke and wrote in several languages to a wide international audience. The editors must be congratuiated for organizing the versatile papers into a logical flow of ideas that is a direct reflection of Durin's published work, and, stimulated by conferences and seminars in which he played a highly active and leading role. Such an organization of the book reveals its over-riding objective--that of summarizing the basic ideas of "The TurinSchool" and especially its impact on the role of the construction industry in national development. Followingthe editors' "Personal Memoir," is a bibliography of Turin's contributions listing eighty-eight entries to his published works (tile majority prepared by Turin, others under joint authorship), thirty-eight research studies and theses supervised by him and twenty-six miscellaneousbook reviews, press reports and interviews. Also included is an extensive list of conference documents, reports and background papers. These documents reflecting the direct involvement of Duccion Turin, were prepared under the aegis of the Habitat Conference(sessions in New York, 15-24 January 1975; New York, 2529 August 1975; New York, 12-23 January 1976; Teheran, 14 June-19 June 1975; Cairo, 21 June-26 June 1975; Caracas, 30 June-4 July1975; Geneva 30 June-1 July 1975; Dubrovnik,20-23 May 1975; Geneva, 22-26 September 1975). Part II of the book, entitled "Construction and Development,"exemplifies the ideas and applicability of "The Turin School." It is introduced by Turin'~ seminal paper "Construction and Development" originally published in 1973.• The following papers, evaluating the role of construction industry in the process of economic development, are reflections and confirmations of Turin's research. The first among them, "In Search of a Paradigm," by Stephen Drewer, is a philosophicalsummary of Turin's approach to developingan understanding of the economies of the country's construction industries. The others ("Construction Estimates and National Income Accounting in Developing Countries" by S. Hable-Selassie, "The BuildingIndustry in Sri Lanka, a Problem of Common Interest to Developing Countries" by S. Ganesan, "Comparison of Construction Costs in the United Kingdomand Hungary"by Gyula Sebestyen, and "The Role of Construction in GIooal Socio-Economic Development" by Juliusz Gorynski) are specific applications to countries of different socio-economic systems. At the end of Part II is a brief lecture delivered by Turin in Londonin 1966, entitled "Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps.... " It is a stimulating, thoughtful and intuitive set of propositions outlining the future roles of construction industries in national development, yet relevant to the present. 1Easiest available in its republished form as "The Role of Construction in Development Strategies," International Development Review, vol XVI, No. 3, 1974/3. 140
The Part III, "Settlement Planning," introduces papers which, using the editors' words, "the aathors would obviously have liked to discuss with Duccion and which they contributed to the memorial volume in order to record their respect for his authority in the subject." Tile papers deal with the principal topics of the Habitat Vancouver Conference. Among the ten papers included in this part, the first two papers deal with a topic of special interest to the regional scientist--that of spatial and non-spatial inequality in the distribution of resources. These papers are "Restructuring Images of Inequality" by Stelios Kafandaris and "Planned Land Use for Human Settlement Development" by Harim Darin-Drabkin. The next three papers ("Strategies for Fast-Growing Cities" by Richard Llewelyn-Davies, "The Planning of Bogota" by Walter Bor, and "Spontaneous Urban Settlements" by Leatric MacDonald) focus on the demographic bases of urbanization and urban growth strategies. And the next four papers ("An Urban Housing Project in Upper Volta" by Guy Lemarchands, "ilabitat: A R u r a l View" by R. P. Misra and S. Bhooshan, "Urban Decentralization" by Nigel Harris,"The New Landscape" by C. M. Correa) are practical applications of settlement theories to individual regions, to urban policy formulations and to the future of Third World Cities. The section is concluded with an unpublished and brief note by Turin entitled "It Had to be Said." It is a provocative, stimulating, and self-critical set of propositions and guidelines addressed to his colleagues on the eve of the Vancouver Conference. Part IV is entitled "After Vancouver." It introduces to the reader eight papers all addressed to the question of "what are the practical aims and results of conferences dealing with international accomplishments and concerns for the future of settlements." T h r e e papers are action oriented and of an organizational nature, discussing the problems of designing a "different type of international conference programme" and the role of the UN bodies. These are "Toward an Analytic Posture in UN Operations" by Abraham Edel, "Habitat, Before and After" by Jan Van Ettinger, Sr. and "A Note on Post-Habitat Action" by Eric Carlson. The next three papers ("Dubrovnik Viewed from Latin America" by Juan Pablo Terra, "The Recommendations of the UN Conference on Human Settlements and Their Viability in Latin America" by Jorge Hardoy, and "International Energy Management" by M. F. Strong) consider the applicability of international conference findings to Latin America and emphasize the problem of conforming and realizing the ideals as spelled out in Vancouver with the realities of the political and socio-economic life of many less developed countries. The last two papers in this Part are of a concluding nature. The first one ("The Next Step") written by Ernest Weissmann, Turin's mentor is a declarative statement calling for a wide scale international realization of Vancouver Conference recommendations and for carrying on the Turin's project of "Relearning Habitat." The second paper by Turin, "Exploring Change: What Should Have Happened at Habitat," is a lecture delivered by Turin 2at Aspen, Colorado, a few days after the end of the Vancouver Conference. In this presentation Turin explores the meaning of "Relearning Habitat." Taken as a whole, t h i s book is a valuable addition to the literature of economic development. It is well edited and most of its papers are very readable. Regional scientists would benefit by using it as a reference source to an area where regional science theories and concepts are widely applicable and where the quality of applications is frequently l o w . Although the book does not contribute directly to the enhancement of regional science thought, it challenges 21nternational Design Conference, Aspen, Colorado, U.S.A., 13-18 June 1976. 141
all those interested in the spatial analysis of economic development by asking and examining provocative questions and by providing fresh ideas. In this way it is hoped that the book would stimulate empirical research and will most likely be reviewed (by those who are interested in expanding the scope of their research interests) as an important contribution. Karel J. Kansky University of Pittsburgh, USA URBAN PLANNING FOR ARID Z O N E S - - A M E R I C A N E X P E R I E N C E S AND DIRECTIONS e d i t e d by Gideon Golany. J o h n Wiley and Sons, 1978, pp. xxii, 245. Cloth.
So much of contemporary literature in urban planning is abstract and distant from public action that it is a delight to come across a book that offers concrete suggestions. It is a book full of facts and information. If you want to know about the climatic, topographical, landscape and solar factors bearing on the layout of cities in arid zones, this is a very useful book. One does not necessarily have to be specifically interested in arid zones' physiography to benefit from this book. It argues very convincingly the case for respecting and taking advantage of physical environments in designing cities. There are three themes interwoven into this book: one, the physical and climatic peculiarities of arid zones and their influence on urban forms; second, the American practices and experiences in planning a r i d regions of the southwest--particularly Arizona; and third, the requisites of planning for new or rapidly growing (boomtowns) communities. In sum this book outlines factors that have been or should be taken into consideration in planning communities in arid regions of the U.S. in particular. The following are some lessons/tips that can be culled from 16 essays c o n t r i b u t e d by d i f f e r e n t a u t h o r s i n t h i s v o l u m e :
(a) (b) (c) (d) (e) (f) (g)
Plan on t h e r e g i o n a l (large) s c a l e for arid zones. C i t i e s in arid z o n e s should be c o m p a c t and not s p r a w l e d out. Town s i t e s should be p r e f e r a b l y a l o n g slopes of hills and not in valleys to take advantage of adiabatic processes. Cities should be laid out diagonal to the East-West axis to reduce heat radiation and to provide shaded areas.
Wind flow through a city should be minimized by zigzagging streets and staggering buildings. Buildings should be oriented north-south to avoid daytime heat and to catch night's coolness. Wherever possible, water should be judiciously used to create cool microclimates, e.g., buffering cities with greenbelts or water bodies.
The book points o u t t h a t arid regions c a n be made more l i v a b l e by giving a t t e n t i o n to c l i m a t i c and l a n d s c a p e f e a t u r e s . In a way this book falls w i t h i n c o n t e m p o r a r y e n v i r o n m e n t a l i s t e t h o s . It a r g u e s for working with n a t u r e r a t h e r t h a n in o p p o s i t i o n to it. If p r e s c r i p t i o n s of this book w e r e to be followed, t h e n c i t i e s of arid r e g i o n s would r e s e m b l e c l e a n e r and g r e e n e r J e d d e h or J a f f a - - n o t an u n w e l c o m e p r o s p e c t . On a t h e o r e t i e a l p l a i n , a q u e s t i o n m a y be a s k e d w h e t h e r t h e r e is a d i s t i n c t mode of u r b a n p l a n n i n g in d e s e r t r e g i o n s . This q u e s t i o n is not u n w a r r a n t e d . The 142
book's editor himself alludes to this issue by aspiring to fill 'a noticeable gap in the planning profession's literature' about urban and regional planning in arid zones. Obviouslyit is assumed that there is a specific mode or science of urban planning in arid zones. It should not distract from the value of the book if I were to say that there is no discernible evidence to suggest a distinct planning process for arid zones. Perhaps it does not exist. There cannot be any dispute about the necessity of tailoring city layouts, design standards and service provisions to the environmental regimes of specific sites, be those in southern deserts or northern tundras. A workable planning process should provide opportunities for situationally relevant planning. Many a time it does not happen. National, social, economic, and technological forces militate against the flexibility and responsiveness of the planning process. In the U.S., city development is going to proceed in ways that are broadly similar across the nation space, because of the pervasive institutional uniformities. This fact fundamentally contradicts any physical deterministic view of planning. The weakest sections of the book are contributions on social and economic issues. Unlike physical and climatic features, there are not many unique (to arid regions) socio-economic characteristics. It is, therefore, obvious that social and economic analysts have to fall back on common analytical categories such as ethnicity, stratification, age-sex composition, social mobility, cybernetics, human rights, public investments, cost-benefits, etc., etc. Descriptions of these categories peppered with exhortations to make them specifically relevant to arid zones are all that can be learnt from essays on socio-economic issues. The 'physical' and 'social' aspects dealt with in this book do not hang together. The former are concrete and unique, and the latter are diffused and pervasive. This disparity of treatment is another evidence of the inherent contradictions in the objectives of this book. To the extent it has attempted to evolve a 'science' (or mode) of arid zone urban planning, it has failed to be convincing. On the other hand, it is a rich sourcebook of information about physical environment that urban planners of arid areas would find very useful. Mohammad A. Qadeer School of Urban and Regional Planning Queen's University, Canada THE APPLICATION OF METttODS FOR LOCATIONAL CHOICE IN THE PROCESS OF DECIDINGUPON THE LOCATION OF UTILITY ESTABLISHMENTS IN THE COMMUNITIES OF NORDRHEIN-WESTFALEN) by Rolf Hoberg. The State of Nordrhein-Westfalen's Research Reports, No. 2753/ Economics and Social Sciences Branch Group, Opladen, Westdeutscher Verlag, 1978, pp. 96. Paper, DM 18.00. Even though locational problems of public administrations received more attention in the process of developing an adequate theory of location as well as in practical planning of the last years, there is in Germany--just as in many other countries--only little knowledge as to which locational methods are actually employed by administrations. Information about the kind of methods actually applied, the frequency and success of their application, the quality of results, and consideration of these results are largely nonexistent. Using an empirical investigation the author wants to improve the level of knowledge on the application of locational methods in Federal Germany's town planning of utility plant location. Locations of administrations and private 143
supplies of utility services within the community are being investigated in the town planning process. The author includes the following methods in his analysis: graphic analysis of accessibility, location-oriented cost comparisons, evaluation by way of location-factors, cost-benefit-analyses, mathematical accessibility analysis, m a t h e m a t i c a l optimizing-models for locating, and simulation-models of loeating. The authors conducted a written questionnaire survey of Federal Germany's communities of more than 10,000 inhabitants (242 communities) using a stratified random sample, with the city planning as well as community development planning agencies as interviewing units. Returned questionnaires amounted to 24.4 percent. An intensive questioning of city officials using computer-supported methods of loeationing was also conducted, as well as an analysis of documents. The author states that 80 percent of planners apply methods of graphic accessibility analysis, location-oriented cost comparisons and evaluation according to loeation faetors, whereas the remaining 20 percent of cities make use of cost-benefit-analysis, m a t h e m a t i c a l accessibility analysis, m a t h e m a t i c a l optimizing models, as well as simulation-models. City size and equipment of planning administrations are determinants for frequency and width of the spectrum applied. Decisive for the first application of sophisticated methods is the appearance of a "field-promoter" and a "power-promoter" of higher hierarchical position letting the methods-applier have his way and supporting him materially. In most cases only an evaluation of given locations is necessary so that the application of methods for location-determination and decision on the size of administrative areas is not necessary. Evaluation methods are tailored to the needs of information and are varied according to supply of data and planning time given. Administrations as well as city-councils demand high transparency of methods so that the more evident methods gain preference, for instanee evaluations using isoehromes. On the other hand, more complicated methods such as potential-models are less welcome. Methods of locational ehoice are used primarily for community utility facilities. The author eites manifest reasons such as data base, administrative competence, integration into the communal ptanning process. Furthermore, the influence of the application of these methods on the actual location-decision is seen as small because of majority interests, the aims of single investors and so on. On the other side, knowledge of methods is the essential power basis of planners as against decision makers. At the time being little can be said as to production advantages of computer supported methods. The author recommends federal and state regulations concerning the application of certain methods. According to Hoberg, research should turn to developing further methods of location analysis, and the spreading of methods in universities and administration workshops should be intensified. Speeiai financial support should be given to those projects, the location of which had been decided upon in a methodically unobjectionable manner. Improvement of the data base should be enhanced by regional computing centers. Even then the author sees hindrances in the supply of data due to the regional and organizational division of competence. In the interviews given as well as in the text the reader misses a recognition of potentially higher planning costs due to the appIieation of these methods. Though there is a reminder of the results achieved with these iocatingmethods in negotiations with private economic units and other administrations, the author does not sufficiently demonstrate the r ef er en ce to location-games. 144
The reader would wish a more exact association of methods-application to separate planning steps as well as to plans such as development, zoning, construction, financial plans. The study fills a substantial gap in the literature on locational problems of public administration. The text is clearly arranged and precise. Summaries make for an easy access to the book's contents. It should be read by location theoreticians, administrators and regional scientists as well as by practitioners of planning. Peter Friedrieh Universitat Bamberg,
West Germany
ECONOMIC ANALYSIS OF TRANSPORTATION NOISE ABATEMENTby Jon P. Nelson. Ballinger Publishing Company, 1978, pp. xviii, 264. Cloth $19.00. Nelson's book purports to provide a comprehensive analysis of means of abating noise from jet aircraft and larger trucks but by his own admission, 'comprehensive' is interpreted in a rather more limited light than a reader might initially suppose. He begins by outlining noise as an economic problem and its effect on people but notes that he does not aim to examine in any depth either the most efficient means of abatement or the distributional consequences. This is unfortunate, despite the scope of the tasks that remain in the "comprehensive analysis," for failing to deal with the former must introduce some uncertainty into the subsequent benefit-cost analysis and such analyses are always suspect if implicitly equal weights are given to the recipients of net benefits irrespective of income levels. Having established the merit of examining the topic of transportation noise, Nelson undertakes a review of alternative acoustic measures which discriminates in its treatment between aircraft and highway noise measures. Public policy developments are then described before, in the main body of the work, a model of property values is developed in order to derive appropriate prices for changes in the selected indices of transportation noise. This model is applied in Chapter 5 to data for the Washington SMSAin 1970 so deriving benefit measures of noise abatement. Chapter 6 compares these estimates with alternative empirical estimates and in the next three chapters, benefit-cost analysis is first outlined and then used to examine the consequences of reducing aircraft followed by truck noise levels. The final chapter examines emission charges as an alternative method of abatement to the imposition of performance standards. The book is not a comprehensive analysis for tile reasons already stated, nevertheless, the scope of the book is considerable and, of course, any solid empirical work in tile area of environmental and energy economics is increasingly important in applied regional science. However,the treatment of the differing topics encountered is uneven in quality and leaves this reader unsure of the potential market of the book. Whereas the introductory chapters are clearly written and only presuppose a basic introduction to microeconomics, for example, the description of noise measurements is very clear, the description of the model in Chapter 5 and its econometric estimation is at least aimed at the graduate market. In particular, where Nelson deals with hedonic prices of housing market attributes, a clearer treatment would not only have improved his book but would also have widened its appeal. Similarly,the organization of the material is sometimes at fault. For example, although an analysis of the Concorde SST is promised in the introduction, it is not to be found in the index
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and in fact, fits uneasily in the company of the material in the public policy chapter. Certainly, the book's preoccupation with noise fails to do justice to the positive benefits of this scheme. In this chapter, in addition, no distinction is drawn between willingness to pay to avoid noise and willingness to accept compensation although it is later in the book. Two crucial questions are raised by the book in is treatment of hedonic prices that are worthy of further attention. Firstly, are the annoyance effects of noise exposure fully reflected in property price differentials? This is important as there is an acknowledged lack of correlation between annoyance and, for example, NEF. Further, supposing that the disutility is fully reflected in market behaviour, can that part of property price differential due to noise exposure be disentangled from the other influences on property prices especially when there is high correlation amongst the explanatory variables? This remains a nagging doubt despite Nelson's competent treatment of collinearity and his subsequent establishment of the correspondence between his estimates and those from other, criticised, studies. The second area to which more attention should have been devoted is the question of measurement error. If this error is large for the Washington SMSA Study, then little confidence may be placed in the resulting values of quiet. Nevertheless, despite these shortcomings, this part of the book is more thoroughly researched than the following sections on benefit-cost analysis. Even though no attempt is made to establish the validity of the hedonic prices except by comparison with previous studies, for example, by a cross-sectional forecast of property prices in another area, these prices are tile basic means of valuing benefits in the benefit-cost analysis. Admittedly, there is some attempt at exploring the sensitivity of ti~e results, for two extremes of price are used in both the jet aircraft retrofit assessment and in the assessment of alternative noise emission standards for medium and heavy duty trucks. In addition, the variation in key parameters required to change the rank order of the alternative cases is examined. However,despite the volume of computation represented in these chapters, a much fuller sensitivity analysis would be welcome. In particular, many assumptions are quickly made in the course of data manipulation that are not subsequently fully examined, for example, the growth rates used for real marginal benefits per household and the choice of, what have proved to be, low alternative rates of discount. Despite these shortcomings, Nelson's book represents a considerable research effort and provides some interesting results which should serve to stimulate further investigations, especially as several component parts of the book have subsequently been published in various journals. It is in attempting to bring these components together in book form that the lack of even treatment becomes apparent, but this is in some respects inevitable given the depth of the study. My final regret is the absence of a concluding chapter that could have served to set the work in its proper context as well as to serve the usual purposes of summary and broad conclusion. David E. Pitfield Department of Transport Technology Loughborough University of Technology, U.K.
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S O U R C E B O O K ON THE ENVII~ONMENT: A GUIDE TO THE L I T E R A T U R E e d i t e d by K e n n e t h A. H a m m o n d , G e o r g e Macinko, and Wilma B. F a i r c h i l d . The U n i v e r s i t y of C h i c a g o Press, 1978, pp. x, 613. C l o t h $20.00. This book t a k e s on a v e r y l a r g e t a s k . C o m m i s s i o n e d by t h e A s s o c i a t i o n of A m e r i c a n G e o g r a p h e r s , it a t t e m p t s to s u r v e y t h e "explosion of i n f o r m a t i o n " in t h e field of e n v i r o n m e n t a l s t u d i e s . T h e r e a r e t w e n t y - f o u r h e a v i l y d o c u m e n t e d r e a d i n g s grouped into t h r e e divisions w i t h a f o u r t h division which i n c l u d e s i n f o r m a t i o n on s e l e c t e d e n v i r o n m e n t a l o r g a n i z a t i o n s and p e r i o d i c a l s and r e v i e w s of e x i s t i n g f e d e r a l e n v i r o n m e n t a l l e g i s l a t i o n . Most of t h e c o n t r i b u t o r s h a v e e x p e r t i s e as g e o g r a p h e r s and p l a n n e r s , but u n f o r t u n a t e l y none of t h e m a p p e a r to h a v e any s p e c i a l i n t e r e s t in n a t u r a l r e s o u r c e and r e g i o n a l e c o n o m i c s . The e i g h t r e a d i n g s in P a r t I, " E n v i r o n m e n t a l P e r s p e c t i v e ~ a n d P r o s p e c t s , " a r e b a s e d upon t h e c o r r e c t a s s u m p t i o n t h a t t h e way people p e r c e i v e t h e e n v i r o n m e n t has a s t r o n g i n f l u e n c e on t h e i n s t i t u t i o n s w h i c h a r e d e v e l o p e d to m a n a g e t h e s a m e . In o t h e r words, h u m a n beings would a t t e m p t to m a n a g e t h o s e p o r t i o n s of t h e e n v i r o n m e n t w h i c h a f f e c t t h e i r w e l l - b e i n g . Obviously, t h e s u b s e t of t h e e n v i r o n m e n t w h i c h is " m a n a g e d " would c h a n g e w i t h i m p r o v e d i n f o r m a t i o n and would also be a f f e c t e d by c u l t u r a l f a c t o r s . The s u r v e y r e a d i n g s b e g i n by d e f i n i n g " e n v i r o n m e n t a l q u a l i t y " and, in t u r n , discuss the d i m e n s i o n s of t h e e n v i r o n m e n t w h i c h are a m e n a b l e to m a n a g e m e n t and various i n s t i t u t i o n a l a r r a n g e m e n t s for c a r r y i n g on this t a s k . This r e v i e w e r found t h e a r t i c l e by Dickinson on e c o s y s t e m m o d e l i n g f a s c i n a t i n g and t h e a r t i c l e by L u t e n on t h e c o n s t r a i n t s t h a t l i m i t e d r e s o u r c e s i m p o s e on g r o w t h e x c e l l e n t . P a r t II, " E n v i r o n m e n t a l M o d i f i c a t i o n : Case Studies," c o n t a i n s e i g h t r e a d i n g s w h i c h r e v i e w t h e l i t e r a t u r e on t h e e n v i r o n m e n t a l i m p a c t s of h u m a n a c t i v i t y . The a r t i c l e s a d d r e s s t h e i m p a c t s of t r a n s p o r t a t i o n , i n d u s t r i a l i z a t i o n , r e c r e a t i o n , a g r i c u l t u r e , mining, and u r b a n i z a t i o n . C o m m o n to all t h e r e a d i n g s is t h e i r a s s e s s m e n t t h a t t h e i n f o r m a t i o n b a s e for a n a l y z i n g t h e s e i m p a c t s is poor. Some of the a r t i c l e s discuss t h e ways in which e n v i r o n m e n t a l i m p a c t s a r e c u r r e n t l y m a n a g e d and r e g u l a t e d . In this r e v i e w e r ' s opinion, not e n o u g h e m p h a s i s is p l a c e d upon m a r k e t s o l u t i o n s . P a r t III, "Major E l e m e n t s of t h e E n v i r o n m e n t , " c o n t a i n s e i g h t r e a d i n g s which s u r v e y t h e l i t e r a t u r e on t h e f u n c t i o n i n g of t h e m a j o r p a r t s of t h e n a t u r a l environment. As e x p e c t e d , m u c h of t h i s i n f o r m a t i o n is b a s e d in t h e n a t u r a l s c i e n c e s . The a u t h o r s do an e x c e l l e n t job in s u r v e y i n g t h e l i t e r a t u r e in a f o r m a t which is i n t e i l i g i b l e to t h e r e a d e r who has not m u c h t r a i n i n g t h e n a t u r a l sciences. The major s h o r t c o m i n g of t h e book lies in its o b j e c t i v e , viz., to s u r v e y t h e c u r r e n t (pre 1978) l i t e r a t u r e on e n v i r o n m e n t a l s t u d i e s . Any s u r v e y book will d a t e w i t h t i m e , and t h e p r e s e n t book is no e x c e p t i o n . H o w e v e r , books of this t y p e a r e n e e d e d e v e r y so o f t e n to b r i n g t o g e t h e r t h e g r o w i n g mass of i n f o r m a t i o n in this a r e a . Without t h e m , t h e i n f o r m e d p r o f e s s i o n a l would be h a r d p r e s s e d to s t a y a b r e a s t of t h e d e v e l o p m e n t s in such a c o m p l e x field. This r e v i e w e r would s u g g e s t t h a t any sequels to the p r e s e n t book draw more s u b s t a n t i a l l y on t h e e x p e r t i s e of e c o n o m i s t s . A n u m b e r of e c o n o m i s t s a r e c i t e d , b u t none c o n t r i b u t e d an a r t i c l e . It m a y well be the c a s e t h a t no a r t i c l e s were solicited from economists. This r e v i e w e r s u g g e s t s t h a t , a t t h e m i n i m u m , an a r t i c l e on s c a r c i t y and t h e m a r k e t r e s p o n s e to s c a r c i t y be i n c l u d e d in P a r t I a n d t h a t a s i m i l a r a r t i c l e on t h e e f f i c i e n c y of d i r e c t r e g u l a t i o n and m a r k e t s o l u t i o n s be included in P a r t II. W. W. Hall, Jr. The U n i v e r s i t y of N o r t h C a r o l i n a at W i l m i n g t o n , USA 147
EMERGING SOUTHEASTASIA, Second Edition, by Donald W. Fryer. John Wiley and Sons. 1979, pp. XX, 540. Cloth. The book sets out as its objective to provide a review of Southeast Asia in economic-geographic terms for "students, business men, public servants and others who require a work with greater attention to economic considerations than has been available so far." After setting the scene by describing the region as a whole linked to the World Economy, and as it copes with central problems of economic/geographic importance (land utilisation, urbanisation, industrialisation and modernisation) identified by the author, he then proceeds to supply in-depth, country-by-country analyses of the politico-economic solutions to these problems offered by the region. Classifyingthe countries under "Progress" (Thailand, The Philippines, Malaysia and Singapore) and "Stagnation" (Indonesia, The Union of Burma, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia) and illustrating the legitimacy of such classifications by economic indicators as well as socio-demographic descriptions, he certainly establishes a strong argument for the central thesis of the book: that a pragmatic, economic approach to economic problems is likely to lead to better economics than a doctrinaire, inflexible one. On the other hand, the author's account is remarkably balanced: malaise born of solutions which are economic only, are also described. Yet, the book ends with a note of hope: the example of the more successful pragmatic countries is likely to influence the rest (e.g., Indonesia) to successful solutions of pressing economic problems--if only the region is allowed to develop in peace. The author touciles on questions of fundamental importance to Regional Science theory--without, in fact resolving them. These questions are: (a) To what degree is leadership per se in conflict with economic achievement ? (b) To what degree is autonomous development at the village level a prerequisite of sustained economic growth and modernization. The e v i d e n c e a p p e a r s to be a m b i g u o u s on b o t h of t h e s e issues, n e v e r t h e l e s s c e r t a i n n e g a t i v e e c o n o m i c i n f l u e n c e s of l e a d e r s h i p b a s e d on u n e c o n o m i c s o e i o - e u l t u r a l " c o n e e n s u s " (be it t h a t of Sukarno's I n d o n e s i a or t h a t of t h e V i e t n a m e s e c o m m u n i s t s ! ) c a n be d i s c e r n e d . On t h e o t h e r h a n d , s t r o n g l e a d e r s h i p b a s e d on e c o n o m i c v a l u e s (Lee Kwan Yew, Mareos) does lead to s o e i o c u l t u r a l f r i c t i o n , in s p i t e of e c o n o m i c s u c c e s s . On t h e s e c o n d issue I b e l i e v e t h e a u t h o r m e r e l y r e i t e r a t e s his b e l i e f in p e a s a n t d e m o c r a c y as a " c u r e all" for s t a g n a t i o n . T h e r e is s o m e e v i d e n c e to s u p p o r t his views, n a m e l y f r o m Malaysia (and, a l t h o u g h not m e n t i o n e d in this book, c e r t a i n l y from Meiji, J a p a n , w h e r e such d e v e l o p m e n t s h a v e also i n c l u d e d a s t r o n g s e n s e of i d e n t i f i c a t i o n w i t h a n a t i o n a l p u r p o s e , r e p r e s e n t e d by an e l i t e w h i c h lead t h e a b o l i t i o n of its own p r i v i l e g e s : t h e s a m u r a i class!). In a s e n s e , his p r e s c r i p t i o n for I n d o n e s i a m i g h t be s i m p l i s t i c , n e v e r t h e l e s s he does i d e n t i f y r e a l p r o b l e m s , in a m o r e b a l a n c e d a n a l y s i s , t h a n , for i n s t a n c e , t h a t of Brion May (An I n d o n e s i a n T r a g e d y , 1979). In s p i t e of s o m e t h e o r e t i c a l s h o r t c o m i n g s , t h e book does a c h i e v e its s t a t e d o b j e c t i v e s . I can r e c o m m e n d it to a n y o n e d e s i r i n g a b a l a n c e d o v e r v i e w ! The S e c t o r s on t r o p i c a l a g r i c u l t u r e are e s p e c i a l l y s t r o n g . Having worked and lived in S o u t h e a s t Asia for t h e l a s t five y e a r s , t h e r e v i e w e r s h a r e s w i t h t h e
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author the prognosis of a fragile but hopeful future for the Region, based, essentially, on a Malaysian model of socio-political pragmatism.
Dr. S. J. TtSr~Ji< Shell International Marine, Shell Centre, London, England LIMITING OIL IMPORTS: AN ECONOMIC HISTORY AND ANALYSIS by Douglas R. Bohi and Melton Russell. Johns Hopkins University Press for Resources for the Future, 1978, pp. xvi, 348. Cloth $22.50. Limiting Oil Imports is, as one might expect from the title and subtitle, a review of attempts by the United States government to restrict importation of petroleum and petroleum products, and an analysis of both the effects and effectiveness of these attempts. The book opens with an introductory chapter that also presents the author's conclusion that there has in fact been a national energy policy; but that owing to the multiplicity of goals and the complexity of the political environment in which the policy was formulated and executed, the continuity of this policy was obscured. Following this is a five-chapter presentation (some two hundred and twenty-five pages) of the historical development of U.S. oil policies. This presentation is remarkable b o t h for its relentless thoroughness and its readability. This latter quality is not easily brought to a project which follows the United States' transition from a net exporter of petroleum in the 1920s to a net importer in the 1940s, with appropriate statistical support, while paying heed to the changing role of the "Seven Sisters" and non-U.S, governments in the world oil market. This historical overview is carried from the early 1950s when voluntary import quotas were introduced, tilrough the mandatory quota program (initiated by Executive Order in March, 1959) which lasted until 1973, and into 1978. The "Search for a New Energy Program" described has certainly not been completed; but the authors remind us that "the mandatory quota program had, and will continue to have, a major influence on energy policy even after its elimination." This influence comes both from the effect of quotas on relations between the U.S. and exporting nations and from the institutional residue of quotas in the entitlements program for "old" oil and other policies. In analyzing the quota program, Bohi and Russell compare it to tariff schemes for effects on producers and consumers. With this initial comparison as a frame of reference, various other policy alternatives are considered, including subsidies, consumption taxes, storage and standby capacity. The analysis of policy effectiveness is hampered, the authors concede, by the fact that "the policy process did not provide any clear definition of the goals and criteria for performance of the mandatory quota program, nor is the political process likely to do so in the future." The analysis focuses on "energy security" as the primary policy goal and compares the effects of alternative policy that would achieve a similar effect. The finding is that, owing to unavoidable imprecision, a leastcost policy for reducing oil imports could not be identified, but "the mandatory quota program was not the optimal instrument to achieve the public policy goal of enhancing security." The explicit regional science content of this work is slight, but there is much in it that ought to be of interest to regional scientists. These items of 149
interest include the role of supernational regions in the formation of oil policy, resulting in hemispheric preferences for imports, as well as the role of subnational regions. The subnational regions naturally include states as well as Petroleum Administration for Defense Districts. As the authors make clear, the interests of interacting parties were often perceived as location-specific, and the resulting policies often had location-specific provisions. In summary, this is an important book that will be useful as a reference volume for matters of U.S. oil policy from 1954-1977, as well as an analytical treatise on oil policy. Regan Whitworth Eastern Montana College, USA EVERYTHING IN ITS PLACE; SOCIALORDER AND LAND USE IN AMERICA by Constance Perin, Princeton University Press, 1978, pp. xv, 291. Cloth $12.95. Offering matter for serious reflection, Everything in its Place should be of great interest to those involved in metropolitan development and land-use planning. This volume studies concepts Americans use in thinking about land use, and seeks out the social forms, functions, applications, and origins of public thoughts, The parallel drawn by Constance Perin between social order and ]and use practises in America constitutes the main avenue towards which she drags us along in order to discover a place for everyone and a place for everything. Although deeply connected with geographical matters, the approach to this reflection remains basically that of the cultural anthropologist Ms. PeNn is. The book consists of six equally interesting chapters and three appendices given as examples of land-use regulations widely in use in America. Chapter One discusses the relationship Ms. Perin sees between land use and social order. It explains how land-use planning, zoning and development practices are a shorthand of the unstated rules governing what are widely regarded as correct social categories and relationships. But the ground on which these social relationships are usually analysed--economic, ideological, governmental--are deliberately disregarded for the benefit of cultural, social and sociological grounds. Much attention is paid then to the criteria used to define categories, to the people who occupy the categories, and to the kinds of relationships among the categories. This approach provides a perspective on the land-use system as a moral system that both reflects and assures social order. Depicting the American Dream of homeownership sociologically, Chapter Two follows the young American through the ladder of life in his rise from renter to owner status. It demonstrates the fact that the actual opportunities for ownership possible from education and work are inadequate without public assistance, for the historical trend to widespread homeownership has come about not through some natural workings of the market, but only by means of an artificial set' of incentives designed originally to stimulate the economy by increasing housing production. Since we can already forecast a significant fall in the availability of capital, land, and purchasing power, the single, coherent social meaning of "owner" will no longer be so clear, as more and more people similar to those who owned in the past cannot afford to own in the future. Conflict, compatibility, social avoidance, social space and social time are at the base of the vocabulary used by the author to discuss the sociology of sprawl and transition which constitutes the essence of Chapter Three. We find here that our attention should not be on social categories as given, but on what 150
gives meaning to them. The social order is strongly believed to be disturbed if there are differences or category mixtures. And this brings Ms. Perin to ask about the will and capacity of people for belonging to and for including others in a community. Chapter Four outlines certain elements the author sees belonging in a social theory of metropolitan development. It focuses on the role of the consumer as the producer of used housing, and demonstrates how the majority of Americans share with producers many of the same conceptions of American social order. These conceptions postulate a place for everyone and a negotiating process which is responsible for such a compartmentalization in land-use matters that the subject--the properties of humankind--is too often completely forgotten for the benefit of single perspectives relative to l a w , economics and government. These last considerations are developed in Chapter Five, while Chapter Six suggests the reunification of moral and technical questions related to the organizing principles of the American system of land-use in order to serve the cause of equal justice under law. And as Ms. Perin finally says, the rewards of such a reunification should take the form of authentic self-respect and social esteem in the social arenas of work and everyday life. This volume seems to me a useful addition to the literature on housing and urban planning. It is to be hoped that this individual effort will be followed by many other since questions raised by this new perspective on land-use surely interest those concerned with metropolitan development and urban planning. Roland Robin SIMA geographes-conseils itee Vieux-Montreal, Que., Canada
MODELLE ZUR ERFASSUNG VON WANDERUNGSBEWEGUNGEN (Models of Regional Mobility) by Walter Schwitzer. Verlag Anion Hain, Meisenheim (FRG), 1978, pp. 424. Paper. This book provides a rather complete survey of mathematical models of regional mobility. After a short introductory chapter on concepts and measurement, which also discusses the state of art of the German official mobility statistics, three groups of models are distinguished: gravitational models and their elaborations and extensions, Markovian models and matrix models. The author's concept of gravitational models is rather2 broad. Starting with the basic gravitational approach Mii = mi x mj / d (Zipf, Steward, 1, . . . . " (r Stouffer: intervening opportumhes , , ) all J single (Lowry, Rodoers) and multiequation econometric models using that relationship in some form are treated under this heading. By far the largest part of the book is devoted to Markovian models which interpret the distribution of the population by age and by region of residence as "states" and aging or moving from one region to another as "transition." As in theoretical statistics the models are classified according to their formal characteristics: models with discrete parameter space (markov-chains), models with continuous parameter space (including semimarkov processes), and--for both cases--stationary and nonstationary populations. The last chapter on nonstochastic matrix models is rather brief and mainly devoted to the work of Rogers.
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The author does not attempt any empirical or applied research on mobility, nor does he attempt any novel theoretical explanation of observed migration. He is interested in the formal structure of existing models with heavy emphasis on stochastic m o d e l s . Consequently the chapters on gravitational and matrix models are mainly a reproduction of the existing literature without original contributions by the author. The chapter on Markovian models, on the contrary, presents a highly original application of main results of the (mathematical) theory of markovian stochastic processes to the modelling of regional migration. For the general reader t h i s chapter is mathematically very advanced and demanding. O n l y those with a good background in probability theory and mathematical statistics will be able to grasp it, a general mathematical training in analysis, e.g., will not be sufficient. Even the voluminous mathematical appendix which starts out with the rather elementary topic of generating functions and proves some theorems used in the main body of the book which are not readily available in general probability or statistics texts will be of little help to the general reader. Therefore the book may be of great interest mainly to specialists in the mathematics of migration and to theoretical statisticians working on population dynamics. It may be considered a very well written, well documented and penetrating contribution to the stock of highly sophisticated models in the field of migration but I doubt that it will be of much help to those who need elaborate models as a prerequisite for their applied numerical econometric research. It certainly does not enhance directly our knowledge of regional mobility and of the determination of existing migration streams and is of no use for policy implementation. It is a contribution to applied statistical theory rather than to regional science. Frank E. Munnich, Munich, Germany MOIRA: MODEL OF INTERNATIONALRELATIONSIN AGRICULTUREedited by Hans Linnemann, Jerrie De Hoogh, Michiel A. Keyzer, and Henk D. J. Van Heemst. North-Holland Publishing Company, 1979, pp. X, 379. Cloth. Moira is an arduous and meritorious attempt at modelling the world food situation. Unlike previous studies as e.g., the ones by the Club of Rome (D. H. Meadows et al; M. Mesarovic and E. Pestel), the Fundacion Bariloche (A. O. Herrera et al.), the United Nations (W. Leontief et al.), that envisage the entire world economy, Moira restricts itself to the agricultural sector aggregating the rest of the economy in one non-agricultural sector. The model is conceived as a simulation model to serve in analyzing alternative policy actions. "The study aims at investigating the causes of hunger and malnutrition in the world, and at identifying the policy measures--particularly those at the international level-that will contribute to solving the hunger problem" (C.f Sect. 9.1.). A number of scenarios are discussed that differ with respect to the development over time of exogenous variables like population growth, growth rates of non-agricultural income, income distribution in the non-agricultural sector and prices of agricultural inputs. The policy measures analysed concern international food aid, international price level as well as price stabilization, and fall into two classes (cf. Sect. 1.4): "Measures intended to achieve a redistribution of available food in the world, and measures intended to stimulate food production in the developing countries. Measures of the first type that are simulated with Moira 152
comprise the (voluntary) reduction of food consumption in the rich countries, and internationally-organized food aid on a large scale. Measures of the second type concentrate on the functioning of the world food market, aiming at a regulation of this market in order to stabilize international prices. In this context, the level at which prices will be stabilized (if possible) is an important policy variable whose influence on tile production in developing countries is tested. Alternatively, the effect which liberalization of international trade may have on developments in the world food situation is examined." A listing of the chapter headlines provides a quick overview: Part h Food, Nature and Man. Chapt. l: Outline of the study. Chapt. 2: Potential world food production. Part lh The Model Moira. Chapt. 3: General discussion of tile model. Chapt. 4: Agricultural production. Chapt. 5: Food consumption. Chapt. 6: The agricultural sector in its national context. Chapt. 7: The world food market. Chapt. 8: The exogenous variables. Chapt. 9: A summary view of IVloira. Part iIh Moira and the World Food Problem. Chapt. 10: Tileworking of Moira and its sensitivity to exogenous influences. Chapt. 11: Analysis of international food policies. Chapt. 12: Some final comments. The model operates with 106 geographical units, that constitute countries or groups of such. 103 of these are classified as market economies, the other three as centrally planned economies. For the market economies six income classes are distinguished in each of the agricultural and the non-agricultural sectors. This leads to computing food consumption in every year for 1242 aggregates. Food production is based on four factors: labour, capital, fertilizer, land. Production is measured in units of consumable protein, which means veetal protein that can be consumed directly or indirectly (via cattle raising) by man. Time dependence of the model is achieved by time varying exogenous variables (providing for the various scenarios) and by, e.g., production decisions in the agricultural sector that are based on the actual price received in the previous years and the expected price of he current one. A year's agricultural production thus being determined, equilibrium prices are calculated such as to adjust demand to supply. Therefore, the model may be viewed as a comparative static one with dynamic features brought in by way of various time lags. Calibration is achieved by cross-sectional estimates for tile baseyear 1965. With respect to calibrating the dynamics of the model the authors formulate in Appendix 3A: "Due to paucity of historical time series, generalization over time remains without empirical text." Presentation of ideas is in some parts broad and minute (which, presumably, is but a subjective statement), yet always lucid and clear not to the least part due to a careful organization of the book which starts each chapter with an introductory overview, defers mathematical detail to appendices, and guides the reader by frequent cross-references and a carefully assembled index. The authors ease the reader's burden of unraveling the unavoidably inherent limitations of the model by presenting in Chapter 12 a summary of criticisms, as seen by the authors. As Moira appears to be one of the first, if not the first world scale model fully focussing on food and nutrition, the following comments from the authors' self-critical list may be useful: "The model generalizes too strongly over countries and is too aggregated. Government policy as well as production and consumption deserve a more detailed treatment, differentiating beween types of products .... Also, the instruments of government policy would have to be differentiated further if the actual institutional setting in which the agricultural sector operates is to be depicted more realistically." Summarizing, one may state the Moira marks a significant step in an attempt at modelling the problems of world food supply and will form a highly valuable reference for 153
research workers and graduate students in the field, and--though to a lesser extent--for decision makers and a broader community touched by the problem area. A computer program in ALGOL, by the way, is available on request. D. Dejon University of Erlangen-Nurnberg, Germany
BASIC COASTAL ENGINEERING by Robert M. Sorensen. John Wiley and Sons, 1978, pp. xviii, 227. Cloth. This publication is an introductory text on wave mechanics and other coastal processes which are significant to coastal engineering. It is part of a Wiley series which was created to introduce engineers and scientists to the different areas of ocean engineering. The aim of this text in particular is to provide a background to enable the reader to "pursue more advanced study of the various theoretical and applied aspects of coastal hydromechanics and coastal engineering design." Although the text is directed toward the advanced undergraduate engineering student with a grounding in fluid mechanics and mathematics that is common to engineers, it emphasizes a physical description of basic coastal processes and does not rely solely on analytical procedures. The book is not a design manual, but it does provide an understanding of coastal engineering. The book is well organized and follows a logical progression. Its first two chapters provide the basis for the remaining chapters. Chapter one is an introduction to the field of coastal engineering and to literature sources, whereas the second chapter gives the primary theoretical foundation through exposition of two-dimensional wave characteristics and wave equations. The remaining five chapters deal with varous engineering aspects of waves, water level, coastal structures,andcoastal processes. The chapters are subdivided into well-labeled sections, and the written text is adequately supplemented with equations and diagrams. Substantial references are given to more detailed and advanced studies, and a problem set is given at the end of each chapter to aid the student in understanding the material. Overall, the material covered seems complete with respect to the objectives of the book. Because the book is an engineering text, it has little relevance to regional science. The coastal zone has come under close scrutiny in the past decade, and a number of aspects are in the domain of regional science such as studies of facility siting, on-shore impacts of coastal energy facilities, and economicecologic linkages. Issues of this type, however, are not a part of coastal engineering, and thus this publication has no bearing on regional science. The publication's primary purpose is to provide a basic introduction to coastal engineering, and thus it would be useful to the regional scientist only to the extent that such knowledge is desired. The regional scientist working on coastal impact studies and other types of coastal research should have an understanding of basic physical processes, but it is not reasonable to become versed in coastal engineering nor any other type of engineering or physical science. If such knowledge is needed for particular regional studies, it should be obtained through cooperative interdisciplinary efforts. In summary, Sorensen has written an excellent text on Basic Coastal Engineering. The creative regional scientist may find ways to adapt some of the
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concepts and formulas to regional phenomena, but for all practical purposes the book is of little relevance to the field of regional science. Andrew A. DzuriK Department of Urban and Regional Planning Florida State University, USA THE SOUTH AND THE POLITICS OF SLAVERY, 1828-1856 by William J. Cooper, Jr. Louisiana State University Press, 1978, pp. XV, 401, $22.50. The primary objective of this book is to show that slavery was the fulcrum for southern politics. In so doing, Cooper's work represents the first complete southern political history other than that of individual states and, also, shows the continuation of slavery as the key political issue in the South from 1828, the beginning of the Jacksonian era, through the decade before the War Between the States. The author views slavery as an integral part of southern politics and not as a powerful but segregated entity in the southern political arena. This view reenforced the argument that slavery and not finance and economics dominated the politics of the Jacksonian South. And the politics of slavery continued its almost total domination of the South for the remainder of the Antebellum era. William J. Cooper, Jr. contains his "politics of slavery" to the eleven states of the Confederacy and treats these eleven states as a unit because all southerners were enmeshed in the politics of slavery. This is not a study of local issues or politics, but rather one of the South as a whole. This approach is supported by an excellent review of the presidential campaigns from 1828 to 1852 in much detail relating slavery as the number one political issue in the South during this period; brief mention is also given to the obvious results of the presidential election of 1856. This book is a commendable undertaking and adds much undertanding to a subject and era that are today still not very well understood. The author, also, brings out the flavor, style, and campaign techniques of southern politics during this time in an extremely well researched and documented work. (The bibliography contains a wealth of primary sources.) It is obvious that much time and effort went into this research. And, if there is a criticism of this book it is not one of fault in any sense, but rather one of the task itself, i.e., in presenting the politics of slavery in the South, 1828 to 1856. A tremendous amount of information and data are presented in the text, and this obviously necessary presentation becomes confusing at times. This confusion is not the author's fault; he has a forthright and clear writing style. Rather, it is simply impossible to present such a tremendous quantity of facts in a relatively, and quite reasonably, designed book of moderate length without some confusion. The South and the Politics of Slavery~ 1828 to 1856 will be of interest to at least two groups of readers. Political scientists and historians interested in the Antebellum period in the South should find this work a great step forward in their field of study. The second group of readers and scholars that should find this book of importance are those who have any doubts that a single political issue can override and truly dominate the political thinking of a relatively large region of a large country for a long period of time. Clarence G. Ray University of Nevada, Las Vegas, USA 155