Pitfalls in the environmental interpretation of insect death assemblages

Attention is drawn to the absence of an established basis for the reconstruction of past environments from insect death assemblages. A naïve reconstruction based on a modern death assemblage from a drain in the City of York is tested and shown to be inadequate in a number of respects. Certain of the habitats indicated by the fauna are absent from the surroundings, while the importance of some others is exaggerated. It is concluded that these errors were brought about by the active or passive long distance transport of insects.     

RECESSIONARY SHOCKS AND REGIONAL EMPLOYMENT: EVIDENCE ON THE RESILIENCE OF U.K. REGIONS*

ABSTRACT We analyze the resilience of U.K. regions to employment shocks. Two basic notions of resilience are distinguished. With engineering resilience, there is an underlying stable growth path to which a regional economy rebounds following a shock. With ecological resilience, shocks can permanently affect the growth path of the regional economy. Our data set consists of quarterly employment series for 12 U.K. regions (NUTS I) for the period 1971–2010. Using a seemingly unrelated regression (SUR) model specification, we test for the relevance of (engineering) resilience of U.K. regional employment to the four recessionary shocks in our sample. It turns out that U.K. regions do indeed differ in their resilience, but that these differences mainly concern the initial resistance to these shocks and not so much the recovery stage. The SUR model does not allow shocks to have permanent effects and it also does not take the possibility of time differentiated shock spillovers between the 12 regions into account. To this end, we also estimate a vector error‐correction model (VECM) specification where employment shocks can have permanent effects and where also interregional employment linkages are included. We find that employment shocks typically have permanent effects when it concerns the own‐region effects. Permanent effects can also be found for the impact on other regions but the interregional effects are typically only significant for nearby regions.     

Shorter notices

The City and the Region. By R. Grieve and D. J. Robertson. 8 ½ × 5 ½. Pp. iv + 39. Edinburgh and London: Oliver & Boyd, 1964. 5s.

Edinburgh. By George Scott‐Moncrieff. Pp. 135. Illustrations and plans. Oliver and Boyd, 1965. 25s.

Inverewe: a Garden in the North‐West Highlands. By May Cowan. Pp. 152. 31 illustrations. Geoffrey Bles, 1964. 35s.

The Scottish Peaks. By W. A. Poucher. Pp.442. 200 illustrations. 31 maps. Constable & Co. Ltd., 1965. 25s.

On Ski in the Cairngorms. By V. A. Firsoff. Pp.98. 17 illustrations. 4 sketch maps. W. & R. Chambers Ltd., 1965. 8s. 6d.

The Fortified House in Scotland. By Nigel Tranter. Vol.3. South‐West Scotland. Pp.185. Oliver & Boyd, 1965. 30s.

The Coastline of England and Wales. By J. A. Steers. Pp. xxviii + 750. Maps and diagrams. Second edition. Cambridge University Press, 1964. £5 5s.

Europe: a Regional Geography. By M. R. Shackleton. Pp. xvi + 572. Maps and illustrations. 7th edition. Longmans, Green & Co. Ltd., 1964. 45s.

Heidelberg und die Rhein—Neckar—Lande. By Gottfried Pfeifer and others. Pp. 292. Published for the 34th German Geographical Congress 1963.

Fundamentals of Economic Geography. By William Van Royen & Nels A. Bengston. Pp. xxv + 613. 5th edition. Constable & Co. Ltd., 1964. 80s.

An Intermediate Commercial Geography: Part 1. Commodities and World Trade. By L. Dudley Stamp. Pp.292. 12th edition. Longmans, Green & Co. Ltd., 1965.