MEASURING THE DEVELOPMENT IMPACT OF A TRANSPORTATION SYSTEM: A SIMPLIFIED APPROACH*

The Multiregional Variable Input-Output (MRVIO) model is introduced to measure the development impact of a transportation system. The MRVIO model is a theoretically flexible, computationally simple, and cost-responsive model. Under the MRVIO model, regional input-output coefficients, trade coefficients, and trade flows become cost responsive and easy to compute. The MRVIO model is employed to measure the development impact of the Arkansas waterway during the period of 1974 to 1978. In the study, the U.S. economy is disaggregated into 3 regions and 35 industrial sectors. The MRVIO model estimates the economic conditions of these 3 regions with and without the waterway in terms of industrial output, income, employment, and trade flows.     

TESTING SIZE-DENSITY RELATIONSHIPS WITHOUT RATIO-VARIABLES,MULTICOLLINEARITY, LOGARITHMIC TRANSFORMATIONS,OR REGRESSION ANALYSIS*

Using data describing the historical distribution of county seats in the United States, we (1) replicate the traditional ratio-variable test of the size-density law, (2) test a new multivariate, nonratio form of the law, and (3) introduce an alternative method of testing, one which avoids three possible problems in traditional analyses: ratio-variables, multicollinearity, and logarithmic transformation.     

Progress in the human geography of the Maghreb

Sutton and Lawless review a selection of the prolific literature on the Maghreb's human geography published from the late 1970s onward. The pedigree of the discipline in Maghreb was established by several notable geographers who lived, researched, and wrote there. Augustin Bernard's writings on rural settlement, his atlas, and study of Algeria are still cited. Jean Despois's regional study with Raynal and his work on Tunisia, together with the detailed rural research of Jean Poncet, provides a particularly rich coverage for that country. Jean Dresch's early work on Morocco exemplified an early critique of the contemporaneous uncritical colonial human geography. The Sahara's fascination also inspired pioneering studies by Robert Capot-Rey. The work of these notables and others provided a solid background of geographical literature on the Maghreb to be supplemented, criticized, and challenged by more recent researchers, sometimes pupils of the above individuals, and increasingly North African by birth. The tradition of general texts on the Maghreb has continued, though increasingly with systematic approaches replacing regional appraisals. The geography of the decolonization of the Maghreb by Isnard has been replaced by a study summarizing recent collaborative work by a team of French geographers. The Saharan extensions of the Maghreb states have often been linked in general works, sometimes being juxtaposed against the Maghreb as in the essays offered to Jean Despois. Lawless and Findlay's collaborative study juxtaposes geographical studies of each country's economic development with political scientists' evaluations of their sociopolitical development. This review limits itself largely to geographers and geographical journals, only occasionally including significant works from other subject areas, and to 1977-1978 publications, with a few notable exceptions. The spatial juxtaposition of contrasting approaches to economic development, liberal market economy approaches by Tunisia and Morocco arguably leading to dependency, and centrally-planned strategies by Algeria and Libya resulting in bureaucratic constraints serves to offer the Maghreb as a pertinent case-study region for the applied geographer of developing countries.