Geostatistical Analysis of County-Level Lung Cancer Mortality Rates in the Southeastern United States

The analysis of health data and putative covariates, such as environmental, socioeconomic, demographic, behavioral, or occupational factors, is a promising application for geostatistics. Transferring methods originally developed for the analysis of earth properties to health science, however, presents several methodological and technical challenges. These arise because health data are typically aggregated over irregular spatial supports (e.g., counties) and consist of a numerator and a denominator (i.e., rates). This article provides an overview of geostatistical methods tailored specifically to the characteristics of areal health data, with an application to lung cancer mortality rates in 688 U.S. counties of the southeast (1970–1994). Factorial Poisson kriging can filter short-scale variation and noise, which can be large in sparsely populated counties, to reveal similar regional patterns for male and female cancer mortality that correlate well with proximity to shipyards. Rate uncertainty was transferred through local cluster analysis using stochastic simulation, allowing the computation of the likelihood of clusters of low or high cancer mortality. Accounting for population size and rate uncertainty led to the detection of new clusters of high mortality around Oak Ridge National Laboratory for both sexes, in counties with high concentrations of pig farms and paper mill industries for males (occupational exposure) and in the vicinity of Atlanta for females.     

A HARMONIZATION OF FIRST AND SECOND NATURES*

ABSTRACT This paper investigates the joint impact of the first nature and the second nature forces on industry location. Toward this aim, we develop a two‐region new economic geography model where local factor congestion and location advantages compete with demand linkages and product market crowding. In particular, we study the case of absolute location advantage in a single industry model and the case of comparative advantages in a two‐industry model. We characterize the structure of industries and discuss the possibilities of catastrophic changes, endogenous industrial asymmetries and specialization. We find that absolute location advantage are associated with a smooth agglomeration process and comparative advantages with a catastrophic process.     

L'impensé du marché

The historiography of the United States in the xviii^th and beginning of the xix^th centuries stresses the key role of market development in the economic growth of the area. Various historical schools argue over the role of moral or household economic attitudes, and over the rhythm and extent of market integration. But because of the peculiar chronology of the economic development of the United States, compared to Great-Britain, it has long been assumed that this market integration, more than any technological progress, has been at the root of the industrial revolution and of industrial capitalism. The concept of market, however, has never been itself criticized and historicized. This paper offers a historically relevant modelization of merchant activity, and offers some hypotheses on the transition from this model to industrial capitalism.     

State Making and the Politics of the Frontier in Central Benin

Kopytoff's model of the African frontier has opened room for renewed approaches to settlement history, politics, ethnicity and cultural reproduction in pre‐colonial Africa. This interpretative framework applies well to central Benin (Ouessè). Over the long term, mobility has been a structural feature of the regional social history, from pre‐colonial times onwards. Movements of people, resources, norms and values have been crucial in the production and reproduction of the social and political order. The colonial intrusion and its post‐colonial avatars gave way to renewed relations between mobility and locality, in particular in the form of a complex articulation between control over labour force, access to land and natural resources, and out‐ and in‐migrations. This article argues that the political frontier metaphor provides a useful heuristic device to capture the logic of state making, as the changing outcome of organizing practices taking place inside and outside state and non‐state organizations and arenas. Governmentality in post‐colonial central Benin thus results from the complex interplay of mobility, control over resources and state‐led forms of ‘villagization’.     

Making EMU a success

One year has elapsed since the European Monetary Union was created between eleven of the fifteen European Union member states. During 1999 the economic prospects for euroland have dramatically improved, with projected growth in 2000 and 2001 well above earlier expectations. This article argues that the recovery, by itself, cannot solve Europe's unemployment problem, neither can monetary union per se, despite its substantial benefits. The authors discuss these benefits and assess the current economic situation in Europe. They recommend a bold, coordinated approach, a growth pact for Europe, based on the three complementary legs: substantial tax cuts; an accommodating monetary policy; and structural reform. They discuss the conditions in which such a pact would be successful.     

The institutionalisation of ‘colonial geography’ in France, 1880-1940

Between 1880 and 1900, the conjunction of the development of higher education in France with the renewal of colonial expansion resulted in the creation of the ‘colonial sciences’. ‘Colonial geography’ played a key role in the development of these new disciplines, alongside ‘colonial history’, ‘ethnology’, ‘colonial economics and legislation’ and ‘colonial psychology’. This paper considers the social history of this field and of the institutions in which colonial geography was formed. This involves examination of the study of the teaching of ‘colonial geography’ in the universities and French grandes écoles, the gradual professionalisation of scholarship, and the increase in the number of doctoral theses and book publications, which all serve to demonstrate the vigour of the subdiscipline, leading to the emergence of a veritable research community. Under the Third Republic, ‘colonial geography’ in the universities was characterised by great diversity, irreducible to a single or homogenous ‘colonial discourse’.