区域经济学导论英文.pdf

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1、An Introduction toAn Introduction toRegional EconomicsRegional EconomicsEdgar M.Hoover and Frank Giarratani1Introduction WHAT IS REGIONAL ECONOMICSEconomic systems are dynamic entities,and the nature and consequences ofchanges that take place in these systems are of considerable importance.Such chan

2、geaffects the well-being of individuals and ultimately the social and political fabricof community and nation.As social beings,we cannot help but react to the changeswe observe.For some people that reaction is quite passive;the economy changes,and they find that their immediate environment is someho

3、w different,forcingadjustment to the new reality.For others,changes in the economic system representa challenge;they seek to understand the nature of factors that have led to changeand may,in light of that knowledge,adjust their own patterns of behavior or attemptto bring about changein the economic

4、,political,and social systems in which theylive and work.In this context,regional economics represents a framework within which thespatial character of economic systems may be understood.We seek to identify thefactors governing the distribution of economic activity over space and to recognizethat as

5、 this distribution changes,there will be important consequences forindividuals and for communities.Thus,regional or spatial economics might be summed up in the question Whatis where,and whyand so what The first what refers to every type of economicactivity:not only production establishments in the n

6、arrow sense of factories,farms,and mines,but also other kinds of businesses,households,and private and publicinstitutions.Where refers to location in relation to other economic activity;itinvolves questions of proximity,concentration,dispersion,and similarity ordisparity of spatialpatterns,and it ca

7、nbe discussed either in broad terms,suchas among regions,or microgeographically,in terms of zones,neighborhoods,andsites.The why and the so what refer to interpretations within the somewhat elasticlimits of the economists competence and daring.Regional economics is a relatively young branch of econo

8、mics.Its late startexemplifies the regrettable tendency of formal professional disciplines to losecontact with one another and to neglect some important problem areas that requirea mixture of approaches.Until fairly recently,traditional economists ignored thewhere question altogether,finding plenty

9、of problems to occupy them without givingany spatial dimension to their analysis.Traditional geographers,though directlyconcerned with what is where,lacked any real technique of explanation in termsofhuman behavior and institutions to supply the why,and resorted to mere descriptionand mapping.Tradit

10、ional city planners,similarly limited,remained preoccupiedwith the physical and aesthetic aspects of idealized urban layouts.This unfortunate situation has been corrected to a remarkable extent within thelastfewdecades.Individualswhocallthemselvesbyvariousprofessionallabelseconomists,geographers,eco

11、logists,city and regional planners,regionalscientists,and urbanistshave joined to develop analytical tools and skills,andto apply them to some of the most pressing problems of the time.The unflagging pioneer work and the intellectual and organizational leadershipof Walter Isard since the 1940s playe

12、d a key role in enlisting support from variousdisciplines to create this new focus.His domain of regional science is extremelybroad.This book will follow a less comprehensive approach,using the specialinterests and capabilities of the economist as a point of departure.THREE FOUNDATION STONESIt will

13、be helpful to realize at the outset that three fundamental considerationsunderlie the complex patterns of location of economic activity and most of the majorproblems of regional economics.The first of these foundation stones appears in the simplistic explanationsof the location of industries and cit

14、ies that can still be found in old-stylegeography books.Wine and movies are made in California becausethere is plentyofsunshine there;New York and New Orleans are great port cities because each has anatural water-level route to the interior of the country;easily developablewaterpower sites located t

15、he early mill towns of New England;and so on.In otherwords,the unequal distribution of climate,minerals,soil,topography,and mostother natural features helps to explain the location of many kinds of economicactivity.A bit more generally and in the more precise terminology of economic theory,we can id

16、entify the complete or partial immobility of land and other productivefactors as one essential part of any explanation of whatis where.Such immobilitylies at the heart of the comparative advantage that various regions enjoy forspecialization in production and trade.This is,however,by no means an ade

17、quate explanation.One of the pioneers ofregional economics,August L?sch,set himself the question of what kind of locationpatterns might logically be expected to appear in an imaginary world in which allnatural resource differentials were assumed away,that is,in a uniformly endowedflat plain.In such

18、a situation,one might conceivably expect(1)concentration ofall activities at one spot,(2)uniform dispersion of all activities over the entirearea(that is,perfect homogeneity),or(3)no systematic pattern at all,but a randomscatter of activities.What does actually appear as the logical outcomeis none o

19、fthese,but an elaborate and interesting regular pattern somewhat akin to variouscrystal structures and showing some recognizable similarity to real-world patternsof distribution of cities and towns.We shall have a look at this pattern in.Whatthe Christaller-L?sch theoretical exercises demonstrated w

20、as that factors otherthan natural-resource location play an important part in explaining the spatialpattern of activities.In developing his abstract model,L?sch assumed just two economic constraintsdetermining location:(1)economies of spatial concentration and(2)transport costs.These are the second

21、and third essential foundation stones.Economists have long been aware of the importance of economies of scale,particularly since the days of Adam Smith,and have analyzed them largely in termsof imperfect divisibility of production factors and other goods and services.Theeconomies of spatial concentr

22、ation in their turn can,as we shall see in and elsewhere,be traced mainly to economies of scale in specific industries.Finally,goods and services are not freely or instantaneously mobile:Transportand communication cost something in effort and time.These costs limit the extentto which advantages of n

23、atural endowment or economies of spatial concentration canbe realized.To sum up,an understanding of spatial and regional economic problems can bebuilt on three facts of life:(1)natural-resource advantages,(2)economies ofconcentration,and(3)costs of transport and communication.In more technicallangua

24、ge,these foundation stones can be identified as(1)imperfect factor mobility,(2)imperfect divisibility,and(3)imperfect mobility of goods and services.REGIONAL ECONOMIC PROBLEMS AND THE PLAN OF THIS BOOKWhat,then,are the actual problems in which an understanding of spatialeconomics can behelpful They

25、arise,as we shall see,onseveral different levels.Some are primarily microeconomic,involving the spatial preferences,decisions,andexperiences of such units as households or business firms.Others involve thebehavior of large groups of people,whole industries,or such areas as cities orregions.To give s

26、ome idea of the range of questions involved and also the approachthat this book takes indeveloping a conceptual framework to handle them,we shallfollow here a sequence corresponding to the successive later chapters.The business firm is,of course,most directly interested in what regionaleconomics may

27、 have to say about choosing a profitable location in relation to givenmarkets,sources of materials,labor,services,and other relevant location factors.A nonbusiness unit such as a household,institution,or public facility faces ananalogous problem of location choice,though the specific location factor

28、s to beconsidered may be rather different and less subject to evaluation in terms of priceand profit.Our survey of regional economics begins in by taking a microeconomicviewpoint.That is,all locations,conditions,and activities other than theindividual unit in question will be taken as given:The indi

29、vidual units problemis to decide what location it prefers.The importance of transport and communication services in determining locations(one of the three foundation stones)will become evident in Chapter 2.The relationof distance to the cost of the spatial movement of goods and services,however,isno

30、t simple.It depends on such factors as route layouts,scale economies in terminaland carriage operations,the length of the journey,the characteristics of the goodsand services transferred,and the technical capabilities of the available transportand communication media.identifies and explains such rel

31、ations and will exploretheir effects on the advantages of different locations.In,an analysis of pricing decisions and demand in a spatial context is developed.This analysis extends some principles of economics concerning the theory of pricingand output decisions to the spatial dimension.As a result,

32、we shall be able toappreciate more fully the relationship between pricing policies and the market areaof a seller.We shall find also that space provides yet another dimension forcompetition among sellers.Further,this analysis will serve as a basis forunderstanding the location patterns of whole indu

33、stries.If an individual firm orother unit has any but the most myopic outlook,it will want to know something aboutshifts in such patterns.For example,a firm producing oil-drilling or refineryequipment should be interested in the locational shifts in the oil industry and abusiness firm enjoying favor

34、able accessto a market should want to know whether itis likely that more competition will be coming its way.While some of the issues developed in Chapter 4 concern factors that contributeto the dispersion of sellers within an industry,recognizes the powerful forces thatmay draw sellerstogether in sp

35、ace.From an analysis of various types of economiesof spatial concentration and a description of empirical evidence bearing on theirsignificance,we shall find that the nature of this foundation stone of locationdecisions can have important consequences for local areas or regions.introduces explicit r

36、ecognition of the fact that activities require space.Space(or distance,which is simply space in one dimension)plays an interestingly dualrole in the location of activities.On the one hand,distance represents cost andinconvenience when there is a need for access(for instance,in commuting to workor de

37、livering a product to the market),and transport and communication representmore or less costly ways of surmounting the handicaps to human interaction imposedby distance.Butat the same time,everyhuman activity requires space for itself.In intensively developed areas,sheer elbowroom as well as the ame

38、nities of privacyare scarce and valuable.In this context,space and distance appear as assets ratherthan as liabilities.Chapter 6 treats competition for space as a factor helping to determine locationpatterns and individual choices.The focus here is still more macro than thediscussion of location pat

39、terns developed in preceding chapters,in that it isconcerned with the spatial ordering of different types of land use around somespecial pointfor example,zones of different kinds of agriculture around a marketcenter.In Chapter 6,the location patterns of many industries or other activitiesare conside

40、red as constituents of the land-use pattern of an area,like pieces ofa jigsaw puzzle.Many of the real problems with which regional economies deal arein fact posed interms of land use(How is this site or area best used)rather thanin terms of location per se(Where is this firm,household,or industry be

41、st situated).The insights developed in this chapter are relevant,then,not only for theindividual locators but also for those owning land,operating transit or otherutility services,or otherwise having a stake in what happens to a given piece ofterritory.The land-use analysis of Chapter 6 serves also

42、as a basis for understanding thespatial organization of economic activity within urban areas.For this reason,employs the principles of resource allocation that govern land use and exposes thefundamental spatial structure of urban areas.Consideration is given also to thereasons for and implications o

43、f changes in urban spatial structure.This analysisprovides a framework for understanding a diverse array of problems faced by cityplanners and community developers and redevelopers.In,the focus is broadened once more in order to understand patterns ofurbanization within a region:the spacing,sizes,an

44、d functions of cities,andparticularly the relationship between size and function.Real-world questionsinvolving this so-called central-place analysis include,for example,trends incity-size distributions.Is the crossroads hamlet or the small town losing itsfunctions and becoming obsolete,or is its pla

45、ce in the spatial order becoming moreimportant What size city or town is the best location for some specific kind ofbusiness or public facility What services and facilities are available only inmiddle-sized and larger cities,or only in the largest metropolitan centers In theplanned developed or unde

46、rdeveloped region,what size distribution and locationpattern of cities would be most appropriate Any principles or insights that can helpanswer such questions or expose the nature of their complexity are obviously usefulto a wide range of individuals.deals with regions of various types in terms of t

47、heir structure and functions.In particular,it concerns the internal economic ties or linkages among activitiesand interests that give a region organic entity and make it a useful unit fordescription,analysis,administration,planning,and policy.After an understanding of the nature of regions is develo

48、ped in Chapter9,ourattention turns to growth and change and to the usefulness and desirability oflocational changes,as distinct from rationalizations of observed behavior orpatterns.deals specifically with people and their personal locational preferences;it is a necessary prelude to the consideratio

49、n of regional and urban developmentand policy that follows.Migration is the central topic,since people most clearlyexpress their locational likes and dislikes by moving.Some insight into the factorsthat determine who moves where,and when,is needed by anyone trying to foreseepopulation changes(such a

50、s regional and community planners and developers,utilitycompanies,and the like).This insight is even more important in connection withframingpublicpoliciesaimedatrelievingregionalorlocalpovertyandunemployment.and,dealing with regional development and related policy issues,are concernedwit the region