RECENT AND PROSPECTIVE POPULATION GROWTH IN THE U.S.S.R.: 1979-2025

This report presents the results and assumptions of a set of projections of the population of the USSR, 1979-2025. Trends in population size and age-sex composition as well as fertility, mortality, and emigration are discussed. The detailed projection methodology is described in Kingkade (1987). The projections show that the population of the USSR will grow throughout the period to 2025. The working age population will grow very slowly for at least the next 10 years, and will not recapture the rapid growth experienced in the 1970s. The pension-age population will double in size between 1980 and 2025.     

CONVERGENCE AND THE U.S. STATES: A TIME-SERIES ANALYSIS*

ABSTRACT. After decades of apparent convergence, state and regional per capita earnings diverged between 1978 and 1988. A central tenet of the convergence hypothesis is that shocks to relative state and regional earnings, such as those of the 1978 to 1988 period, are transitory. We find evidence for convergence for the U.S. states and regions during the 1929 to 1990 period after allowing for a break in the rate at which the various states and regions were converging in 1946. An important finding of this research is that the US. states and regions achieved per capita earnings convergence by 1946.     

A. POVERTY AND RACE

Irene Lurie, ed., Integrating Income Maintenance Programs
Robert D. Plotnick and Felicity Skidmore, Progress Against Poverty
Sar A. Levitan, William B. Johnston and Robert Taggart, Still a Dream: The Changing Status of Blacks Since 1960
Stanley H. Masters, Black-White Income Differentials: Empirical Studies and Policy Implications
Larry L. Orr, Income, Employment, and Urban Residential Location     

REGIONAL GROWTH IN THE SOVIET ECONOMY A MODEL AND ANALYSIS*

A multiregional econometric model of the Soviet economy is presented. It consists of 1,391 equations, with time-series information for 1965-1980. In conformity with the number of the country's republics, 15 input-output tables are incorporated. The discussion includes the methodological framework, the structure and equations, theoretical justification for the interaction between the econometric and input-output components, data and estimation, and forecasting results.     

REVERSE COMMUTATION IN A MONOCENTRIC CITY*

ABSTRACT. A general equilibrium multiperiod linear programming model of urban land use is used to identify reverse commutation as a rational response to economic change. Information about future economic conditions is complete, and capital is replaceable at finite cost. Export mixes are defined exogenously, and temporal shifts between activities of different land intensities are shown to induce reverse commutes as one way of avoiding the cost of land use change.     

SERVICE EXPORTS AND REGIONAL GROWTH IN THE POSTINDUSTRIAL ERA*

ABSTRACT. The role of service industries in the regional growth process has been debated for decades. Although the importance of services in providing an essential framework for the development of exports has long been acknowledged, their ability to initiate growth has never been generally accepted. In this paper the change in composition of exports from Canada's four western provinces between 1974 and 1979 is analyzed. It was observed that service exports increased more rapidly than exports of goods on both a direct and a direct-plus-indirect basis in 88 percent of comparisons. In absolute terms, the gain in service exports was equal to 89 percent of that for goods exports.     

GROWTH CENTRES,ENTREPRENEURSHIP, AND SOCIAL ENGINEERING*

The purpose of this note is not so much to contribute new ideas or interpretive insights, but essentially to discuss for the general reader in regional development and economic geography ideas and hypotheses which have been formulated in the last few years by people in various disciplines. Space does not permit an in-depth review here.     

SHARABLE INPUTS,PRODUCT VARIETY,AND CITY SIZES*

In this paper, I investigate some of the causes of city formation in spatial economies. A model is proposed in which an intermediate differentiated input shared by more than one industry is the cause of the formation of diversified cities. The desire of both the traded-good and the local-good industries to employ a variety of inputs from the intermediate industry provides the reason for the agglomeration of the three industries. In addition, the paper contains a comparative-statics analysis of the model in an open and a closed-city framework. It is demonstrated that the larger the city, the more variety of intermediate inputs the city can provide and the more specialized it is in the production of the traded-good. Moreover, the model suggests that different industrial structures will result in different city Sizes.