FULL EMPLOYMENT AS A POLICY ISSUE

Passage of the Humphrey-Hawkins Full Employment and Balanced Growth Act of 1978 is the most recent step in the development of a national full employment policy. This article traces the origin of the legislative debate over full employment back to the 1940s, the only previous time that Congress gave serious consideration to full employment legislation. It analyzes the conflicting economic and political interests and philosophies that led to the defeat of the Full Employment Bill of 1945 and to passage of weaker legislation, the Employment Act of 1946, which dropped the commitment to full employment. The article then traces the contours of unemployment since World War II: recurrent recessions; significant unemployment between recessions; the unequal distribution of joblessness, hitting hardest at groups such as minorities, women, and youths; and growing urban and regional unemployment. Some of the hidden social, human and economic costs of unemployment are explored. So is the relationship between unemployment and crime, poverty, welfare, the urban crisis and inequality. Full employment reemerged as a major issue in the 1970s because of the impetus from groups whose unemployment problems persist between recessions. Coalitions of these groups pressed for a national policy to secure full employment for all groups. This led to passage of the Humphrey-Hawkins Act. But the controversy over full employment has not ended. Attempts to implement the Act, the article concludes, may heighten underlying controversies over issues such as inflation, wage, price and profit controls, the environment, and job creation and may make full employment one of the leading domestic issues of the 1980s.     

LAND USE POLICY AS AN INTERNATIONAL ISSUE

Land use is not an end in itself; it is a means to the realization of a broad range of human objectives – social, economic and political. Few public issues appear to be more strictly national. In environment-related United Nations conferences, Third World representatives in particular have asserted the absolute control of nations over their land and natural resources. Nevertheless, international concern over land use has been growing. This concern is both scientific and political and derives from the perception that use and misuse of land may have international repercussions. Developing countries facing disastrous consequences of unwise land use practices (e.g., soil erosion, desertification, water logging and salinization, laterization, and loss of agricultural land to urbanization) have appealed to international organizations for aid. FAO, UNEP, IUCN, ICSU, and the UN Economic Commissions have undertaken land-use related research and assistance programs. Political sensitivities preclude external involvement in national land use policy except in dire circumstances as, for example, in the drought-stricken African Sahel. Thus legitimate international concerns must find indirect strategies to influence governments from among their own national constituents. The IUCN World Conservation Strategy suggests a route that might lead toward concerted action among nations in the formulation of genuine international land use policy.     

THE MINIMAX-MIN LOCATION PROBLEM*

We consider a new objective function for the placement of a public facility with reference to variations in accessibility : the minimization of the range between the maximal and the minimal distances to users. Some properties of the solution are given; algorithms for the Euclidean and rectilinear distance cases are presented.     

THE LOGISTICS-COST LOCATION-PRODUCTION PROBLEM*

ABSTRACT. The paper applies an inventory model to the standard Weber-Moses location-production problem. By setting the problem within a time framework, costs are seen to be incurred by both the holding of goods and the shipment of goods. The optimum location of the firm is seen to depend not only on transportation costs and the nature of the firm's production function, but also on the value of the materials being shipped. Under these conditions there is no homogeneous solution to the Weber-Moses problem. Furthermore, it is shown that the value added at the point of production is the primary factor which governs the optimum location of the firm.     

THE MAXIMUM CAPTURE PROBLEM IN A WEIGHTED NETWORK*

ABSTRACT. In this paper, a conditional location problem on a weighted network is examined. Attraction functions are defined and the problem is formulated as a mixed integer program. A method which simultaneously locates an additional facility on the given network and optimizes its weight is then described. A numerical example is provided.     

THE MAXIMUM CAPTURE OR “SPHERE OF INFLUENCE” LOCATION PROBLEM: HOTELLING REVISITED ON A NETWORK*

ABSTRACT. The problem of the ice cream vendor on the beach is extended to the siting of multiple entering servers into the midst of existing servers which are already in place at multiple sites on a network. The network of population nodes, joining arcs, and eligible sites for servers provides the underlying matrix of the problem. The goal of the single firm which is siting the multiple entering servers is the capture of the maximum population from existing servers. This combinatorial problem can be described as a linear integer program for which solutions can easily be derived. Computational experience and insights derived therefrom are reported.