Inter- and intraregional inequality in a spatial economy

In this paper, we develop a three-region economic geography model with workers of heterogeneous skills and mobility rates to consider how first-nature, regional differences impact both inter- and intraregional inequality. In our model, the skill premium within a region summarizes both the degree of intraregional inequality between mobile, skilled workers and immobile, unskilled workers and the interregional inequality through differences in the welfare of unskilled workers across regions. Regions with the highest skill premium have the greatest degree of intraregional inequality and provide the lowest level of welfare to unskilled workers, relative to other regions. We find that the skill premium will be higher in regions with a greater supply of unskilled labor, lower supply of housing, or are more remote. An increase in a region's housing supply or centrality will lower intraregional inequality and raise the welfare of the local, unskilled workforce. However, the magnitude of these changes are declining in the initial number of skilled workers in the region. The model is extended to consider imperfectly elastic housing supply. The larger the price elasticity of housing, the larger the range of values, such that more populated regions will host a disproportionate share of skilled workers, have lower levels of intraregional inequality, and provide higher levels of welfare for unskilled workers.     

Book reviews

Australian Politics

Douglas Blackmur, Strikes: Causes, Conduct and Consequences (Sydney: The Federation Press, 1993) pp.232 $n.p. ISBN 1 86287 114 0.

W.D. Borrie, The European Peopling of Australasia (Canberra: Demographic Program, RSSS, Australian National University, 1994) pp.403 $24.50 ISBN 0 7315 1860 8.

Deborah Brennan, The Politics of Australian Child Care: From Philanthropy to Feminism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994) pp.242 $29.95 ISBN 0 521 41792 9.

Peter Gathercole, T.H. Irving and Gregory Melleuish (eds), Childe and Australian Archaeology, Politics and Ideas (Brisbane: University of Queensland Press, 1995) pp.241 $16.95 ISBN 0 7022 26130.

Gerard Henderson, Menzies’ Child: The Liberal Party of Australia (Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 1994) pp.382 $29.95 ISBN 1 86373 747 2.

Dean Jaensch, Election! How and why Australia votes (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1995) pp.155 $19.95 ISBN 1 86373 761 8.

John Murphy, Harvest of Fear: A History of Australia's Vietnam War (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1993) pp.335 $19.95 ISBN 1 86373 49 X.

Bron Stevens and John Wanna (eds), The Goss Government: Promise and Performance of Labor in Queensland (Melbourne: Macmillan Education Australia, 1993) pp.292 $29.95 ISBN 0 7329 2622 X.

Beverley Symons (compiled with Andrew Wells and Stuart Macintyre), Communism in Australia: A Resource Bibliography (Canberra: National Library of Australia, 1994) pp.281 $25.00 ISBN 0 642 10625 8.

W.A. Townsley, Tasmania: Microcosm of the Federation or Vassal State 1945–1983 (Hobart: St David's Park Publishing, 1994) pp.451 $n.p. ISBN 0 7246 2345 0.

Comparative and International Politics

David Baldwin (ed.), Neorealism and Neoliberalism: The Contemporary Debate (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993) pp.377 $US56.50 ISBN 0 231 08440 4.

Leon Brittan, Europe. The Europe We Need (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1994) pp.248 $35.95 ISBN 0 261 00249 4.

Desmond Dinan, Ever Closer Union? An Introduction to the European Community (Boulder, Colorado: Lynne Rienner, 1994) pp.532 $US19.95 ISBN 1 55587 388 X.

Francis G. Castles (ed.), Families of Nations: Patterns of Public Policy in Western Democracies (Aldershot: Dartmouth Publishing Company, 1993) pp.353 £37.50 ISBN 1 85521 345 1.

Hans Magnus Enzensberger, Civil War (Granta Books: London, 1994) pp.144 $14.95 ISBN 0 14 014094 8.

Gareth Evans and Bruce Grant, Australia's Foreign Relations: in the world of the 1990s (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2nd ed., 1995) pp.417 $34.95 ISBN 0 522 84657 2.

S. Henningham and R.J. May (eds), Resources, Development and Politics in the Pacific Islands (Bathurst: Crawford House Press, 1992) pp.323 $24.95 ISBN 186333063 1.

Helen Hughes, Wolfgang Kasper and John Macleod, Australia's Asian Challenge (Sydney, The Centre for Independent Studies, CIS Policy Forums 12, 1994) pp.47 $7.95 ISBN 1 86432 000 1.

Fergal Keane, The Bondage of Fear: A Journey Through the Last White Empire (London: Viking, 1994) pp.242 £17.00 ISBN 0 670 85391 7.

Bradley S. Klein, Strategic Studies and World Order: The Global Politics of Deterrence (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994) pp.196 £11.95 ISBN 0 521 46644 X.

Roy Licklider (ed.), Stopping the Killing: How Civil Wars End (New York: New York University Press, 1993) pp.354 $US50.00 ISBN 0 8147 5070 2.

Andrew Maclntyre (ed.), Business and Government in Industrialising Asia (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1994) pp.312 $29.95 ISBN 186373 556 9.

Michael McKinley, The Gulf War: Critical Perspectives (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1994) pp.201 $24.95 ISBN 1 86373 606 9.

Robert F. Miller (ed.), The Development of Civil Society in Communist Systems (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1992) pp.197 $22.95 ISBN 1 86373 1717.

Kim Richard Nossal, Rain Dancing: Sanctions in Canadian and Australian Foreign Policy (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1994) pp.323. $US21.95 ISBN 0 8020 7571 1.

Barnett R. Rubin, The Fragmentation of Afghanistan: State Formation and Collapse in the International System (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995) pp.378 $US35 ISBN: 0 300 05963 9.

Dennis J.D. Sandole and Hugo van der Merwe (eds), Conflict Resolution, Theory and Practise: Integration and Application (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1993) pp.298 $55.00 ISBN 0 7190 3748 4.

Jan Aart Scholte, International Relations of Social Change (Buckingham: Open University Press, 1993) pp.186 $45.00 ISBN 0 335 09329 9.

Susan L. Shirk, How China Opened its Door: The Political Successes of the PRC's Foreign Trade and Investment Reforms (Washington DC: Brookings Institute, 1994) pp.120 $US28.95 ISBN 0 8157 7854 6.

Stephen John Stedman (ed.), South Africa: The Political Economy of Transition (Boulder and London: Lynne Rienner, 1994) pp.213 $US38.00 ISBN 1 55587 421 5.

Lionel Cliffe et al, The Transition to Independence in Namibia (Boulder and London: Lynne Rienner, 1994) pp.293 $US38.00 ISBN 1 55587 420 7.

Frederick C. Teiwes, Politics and Purges in China: Rectification and the Decline of Party Norms, 1950–1965. 2nd edn (Armonk and London: M.E. Sharpe, 1993) pp.594 $US27.95 ISBN 1 56324 227 3.

Luke Trainor, British Imperialism and Australian Nationalism: manipulation, conflict and compromise in the late nineteenth century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994) pp.213 $29.95 ISBN 0 521 43476 9.

United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, The State of the World's Refugees: The Challenge of Protection (London: Penguin, 1993) pp.191 $19.95 ISBN 0 14 023487.

Joyce N. Wiley, The Islamic Movement of Iraqi Shias (Boulder and London: Lynne Rienner, 1992) pp.193 $US30.00 ISBN 1 55587 2727.

David W. Ziegler, War, Peace and International Politics, 6th ed. (London: Harper Collins, 1993) pp.458 $n.p. ISBN 0 673 52287 3.

Political Theory and Methodology

Stephen Eric Bronner, Of Critical Theory and Its Theorists (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1994) pp.372 $45.00 ISBN 0 631 18738 3.

William James Booth, Patrick James and Hudson Meadwell (eds), Politics and Rationality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993) pp.307 $39.95 ISBN 0 521 43568 4.

Richard Sylvan and David Bennett, The Greening of Ethics: From Human Chauvinism to Deep‐Green Theory (Cambridge, UK: White Horse Press, 1994) pp.269 £11.95 ISBN 0 8165 1529 8.

Danilo Zolo, Democracy and Complexity: A Realist Approach. David McKie (trans.) (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1992) pp.202 $39.95 ISBN 0 7456 0675 X.     

Elastic labor supply and agglomeration

This study analyzes the interplay between the agglomeration of economic activities and interregional differences in working hours, which are typically longer in large cities, as they are normally more developed than small cities. For this purpose, we develop a two‐region model with endogenous labor supply. Although we assume a symmetric distribution of immobile workers, the symmetric equilibrium breaks in the sense that firms may agglomerate when trade costs are intermediate and labor supply is elastic. We also show that the price index is always lower, while labor supply, per capita income, real wages, and welfare are always higher in the more agglomerated region.     

Liberalism, Neoliberalism, and Urban Governance: A State–Theoretical Perspective

This paper discusses the recurrence and the recurrent limitations of liberalism as a general discourse, strategy, and regime. It then establishes a continuum of neoliberalism ranging from a project for radical system transformation from state socialism to market capitalism, through a basic regime shift within capitalism, to more limited policy adjustments intended to maintain another type of accumulation regime and its mode of regulation. These last two forms of neoliberalism are then related to a broader typology of approaches to the restructuring, rescaling, and reordering of accumulation and regulation in advanced capitalist societies: neoliberalism, neocorporatism, neostatism, and neocommunitarianism. These arguments are illustrated in the final part of the paper through a critique of the World Report on the Urban Future 21 (World Commission 2000), both as an explicit attempt to promote flanking and supporting measures to sustain the neoliberal project on the urban scale and as an implicit attempt to naturalize that project on a global scale.     

A Fisk patent metallic burial case from Western Missouri: an interdisciplinary and comprehensive effort to reconstruct the history of an early settler of Lexington,Missouri

In 2006 a cast-iron coffin was discovered in an unmarked burial plot in Lexington, Missouri. A multifaceted investigation was conducted to provide historical documentation and possible identification of the individual. The coffin is an early Fisk Patent Metallic Burial Case. Osteological analyses indicate that the skeletal remains belong to a 20 to 30 year old white female who consistently ate an omnivorous diet with significant amounts of C4 plants or seafood. Rib morphology and her burial garments suggest she frequently wore restrictive clothing. No gross skeletal pathological lesions or trauma were observed except for a patch of reactive bone and an atypical pattern of bone remodeling on the visceral surface of the sixth rib. Subsequent bacterial DNA analysis of the ribs and sternum indicate the presence of tuberculosis infection. Although not conclusive, multiple lines of evidence are consistent with the skeletal remains representing Elizabeth (Triplett) Stewart who died in 1854 of pulmonary tuberculosis. This multidisciplinary research significantly contributes to the local history of Lexington, Missouri and provides a likely identification of the deceased individual for the Stewart Family.