ARCHAEOLOGICAL SCIENCE - PAST ACHIEVEMENTS AND FUTURE PROSPECTS

This paper is the text of the inaugural lecture given by the author in the Ashmolean Museum Lecture Theatre on 23 October 1990 following his appointment in October 1989 to the Edward Hall Chair of Archaeological Science, at the University of Oxford     

AGGLOMERATION AND REGIONAL COSTS OF LIVING*

ABSTRACT Standard models of the new economic geography predict that costs of living are lower in the core than in the periphery. But in reality they tend to be higher in agglomeration areas, mainly because of regional differences in housing costs. In this paper, we add a home goods sector to the seminal NEG model of Krugman (1991) . We show that a core–periphery structure can endogenously emerge in which the core is the more expensive area. This result has an important normative implication. Since higher costs of living imply falling real wages if there is no nominal wage premium, it is not desirable for everybody to live in the core region.     

THE SIZE OF NATURE RESERVES AND COSTS OF THEIR MAINTENANCE

A paper devoted to nature reserve size in the USSR, and more specifically to whether the areas of such reserves are adequate in particular natural zones and for particular species, determines that too many zapovedniki presently are too small to carry out their intended functions properly. In fact, until quite recently, in spite of a dramatic expansion of the total area and number of nature reserves, average reserve size has decreased. A trend toward decreasing reserve size and increasing per hectare maintenance expenditures can be noted as the level of economic development characteristic of particular natural zones increases (translated by Jay K. Mitchell, PlanEcon, Inc., Washington, DC 20005).     

边境旅游研究综述及展望

作者总结了国内外关于边境旅游的研究进展。指出国外研究的成果主要集中在目的地合作和冲突管理、边界效应与旅游影响等方面;国内研究侧重于旅游产品规划与开发,旅游目的地空间结构和管理等方面,国内整体研究水平不高。分析认为,在全球化和区域经济一体化背景下,加强边境旅游的区域性综合研究,重视旅游边界效应的测度,进而揭示跨境合作的内在机理,是中国边境旅游研究的重要方向。     

THE VALAAM ARCHIPELAGO: PROBLEMS AND PROSPECTS

The authors describe a complex of social, economic, and environmental problems on the Valaam Archipelago, associated with pollution of Lake Ladoga, heavy tourist pressure, and deteriorating residential/economic infrastructure for the small permanent population. The islands are known as the site of the architecturally and historically unique Monastery of the Transfiguration, situated on the main island of Valaam—now in disrepair from negligence, heavy visitor pressure, and use as residential quarters for all but a few permanent island residents. The option of resettling this population to the mainland is weighed against its comprehensive development as a historical and tourist center. translated by H. L. Haslett, Leamington Spa, UK from: Izvestiya Vsesoyuznogo Geograficheskogo Obshchestva, 1991, No. 1, pp. 98-103.     

THE EFFECT OF LAND USE AND ENVIRONMENTAL REGULATIONS ON HOUSING COSTS

This paper examines the effects of various land use and environmental regulations on land and housing markets. Seven widely used techniques for controlling residential development appear to generate four “direct” and two “indirect” inflationary impacts. Land use and environmental controls directly affect the supply and cost of residential land, shift the cost of public services forward to developers, and increase delay and compliance costs associated with project evaluation. Development controls may also inadvertently facilitate monopolistic behavior in the development industry and predispose developers to orient their projects to high income groups onto which they can more easily pass along higher costs. The paper concludes by offering several policies for reducing the inflationary effects of environmental regulations.     

BACK TO THE FUTURE: POSTNARRATIVIST HISTORIOGRAPHY AND ANALYTIC PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY

Jouni‐Matti Kuukkanen has written an important book. It directly confronts a key theoretical dilemma that has shadowed debate in historiography for several decades: histories cannot be written without using some narrative structure or other, but epistemological evaluation cannot be applied to narratives qua narrative. Thus, if empirical inquiry takes the form of a history, then it cannot be rationally evaluable, and if rationally evaluable, empirical inquiry cannot be in the form of a history. Kuukkanen's book both directly confronts and proposes a strategy for surmounting this tired and tiresome theoretical barrier. Kuukkanen deserves great credit for attempting to reshape a long‐stalled debate in a way that enables the theoretical options to be imagined anew. Yet his structuring of the oppositional tendencies engenders some ongoing problems regarding how to understand the philosophical stakes and options. This review argues that achieving Kuukkanen's postnarrativist future requires going back to past epistemic concerns discarded because they were tied to conceptions of logic and explanation that could not be reconciled with narrative form. Kuukkanen practices postnarrativism but still preaches a prenarrativist conception of logic. To reach his promised future, to actually overcome the dilemma that he rightly seeks to transcend, one must actually have the courage of Kuukkanen's pragmatist convictions.