The Spatial Distribution of Military Spending in the United States 1941-1985

The spatial distribution of military expenditures in the United States is a major influence on the regional shifts of economic activity that are occurring in the US. The purpose of this study is to trace the changing spatial distribution of military prime contract awards (MPCAs) from 1941 to 1985. Using T-mode and S-mode factor analysis, the results indicate that since 1941 there have been four distinct eras in the spatial distribution of MPCAs. During each era the spatial pattern of military spending remained stable. The shift from one era to another appears to be linked to changes in the type of weapons purchased by the Department of Defense. The most recent era, the High-Technology Weapons era, has lasted for twenty years. The long-term stability evident in the spatial distribution of MPCAs supports the argument that military expenditures have played an important role in regional economic development and change. The findings also indicate that, while many states tend to follow the national trend in military spending, there are also four distinct groups of states which have gained and then lost their positions as military production centers. The main reason behind the rapid growth and decline of MPCAs going to these states was their dependence on a single weapons system.     

Spatial Divisions of Corporate Services Occupations in the United States, 1983–88

This article examines corporate services from a regional perspective, using the concept of “spatial divisions of labor.” We examine non-routine, control-related activity as well as routine activity, bridging the literatures on white- and pink-collar work. Using the Geographic Profile on Employment and Unemployment, published by the U.S. Department of Labor, we examine occupational data across the nine census divisions continuously from 1983 through 1988. This data source is unique because it reports on occupational data annually, in relatively disaggregate form, and does so by geographic regions. Location quotients for the occupational data serve to identify a “core” with respect to concentrations of control-related activity. This core comprises the New England, Middle Atlantic, and Pacific divisions. In contrast, routine activity generally is more dispersed, although some regional separation is evident for specific occupations, showing regional concentration in subordinate or “peripheral” regions. The results of the study identify regional patterns, which are heuristically valuable in raising questions regarding the complex processes responsible for spatial divisions of labor. In particular, the findings suggest a geography of modes of production, a subject that requires substantially more attention.     

Waiting for Broadband: Local Competition and the Spatial Distribution of Advanced Telecommunication Services in the United States

ABSTRACT With the passage of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, Congress directed the Federal Communications Commission and all fifty U.S. states to encourage the deployment of advanced telecommunication capability in a reasonable and timely manner. Today, with the rollout of advanced data services such as digital subscriber lines (xDSL), cable modems, and fixed wireless technologies, broadband has become an important component of telecommunication service and competition. Unfortunately, the deployment of last‐mile infrastructure enabling high‐speed access has proceeded more slowly than anticipated and competition in many areas is relatively sparse. More importantly, there are significant differences in the availability of broadband services between urban and rural areas. This paper explores aspects of broadband access as a function of market demand and provider competition. Data collected from the Federal Communications Commission is analyzed using a geographic information system and spatial statistical techniques. Results suggest significant spatial variation in broadband Internet access as a function of provider competition in the United States.     

Intensive cropping of maize in the Southeastern United States

The long growing season of the southeastern Coastal Plains allows planting of a second crop after spring-planted maize (Zea mays L.). Second crops have been shown to reduce erosion and prevent leaching of nutrients and pesticides. Maize grown with a second annual crop might also have a yield advantage over mono-cultured maize. Seven tillage/cropping systems were compared. They included disking for weed control, disking for seedbed preparation, or no disking. Double-cropped treatments included sunflower (Helianthus annuus L.), soybean (Glycine max. L.), a cover crop [crimson clover (Trifolium incarnatum L.)] or no double crop. Double-cropped soybean yields did not respond to irrigation. They averaged 0.63 Mg/ha over 4 years. This is less than half of the local non-double-cropped yields. Sunflower yields averaged 0.89 Mg/ha, also less than non-double-cropped yields (1.0–2.5 Mg/ha). The best continous maize yields (7–8 Mg/ha) were from treatments with disking in some phase of the operation. Treatments with lower maize yields generally had higher plant nutrient contents. Double-cropped maize yields significantly (P<0.10) outyielded mono-cropped maize yields in two of the three years. In 1984, a dry year, the minimum tillage treatment had lower tensiometer readings than the conventionally tilled treatment.     

The Structure of Agricultural Unemployment in the United States

This paper examines whether employment in agriculture is more sensitive to fluctuations in the level of economic activity than is employment in the economy as a whole. The analytical framework of the investigation rests on two functional relationships between unemployment and economic activity introduced by Thurow. The results indicate that agricultural unemployment is impacted by variations in economic activity to the same extent as is total unemployment. Finally, when subjected to a stability test, the underlying structural relationships are deemed to be stable over the sample period (1948-1988).     

Heterogeneity in the local employment multipliers in the United States

Recent studies have found evidence of a local employment multiplier’s effect. For the most part, these studies provide an average estimate for all labor markets. In this paper, we examine how the average local employment multiplier, the effect of an exogenous increase in employment in the tradable sector on total employment, depends on the characteristics of the local labor market. Specifically, we estimate the average multipliers for coastal, noncoastal, large, and small metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) across different time periods using the data of 333 US MSAs. Overall, we find a reduced form of local employment multiplier ranging from 1.38 to 2.24, which is within the range of typically estimated local employment multipliers. In addition, the characteristics of the local labor market matter. The local multipliers appear larger in noncoastal and large MSAs. For small and coastal metros, the multiplier is closer to 1.5 than to 2.0 while in the case of large and noncoastal metros, it is closer to 2.0 than to 1.5. The local multipliers are also sensitive to the time period considered.     

Corporate-Merger-Defined Core-Periphery Relations for the United States

ABSTRACT A modified core-periphery model of economic spatial relations is tested by an examination of U.S. corporate merger behavior from 1955 to 1980. A core, a number of semicores, semipheripheries, and a periphery describe the merger-defined relationships between states and SMSAs. The core-periphery structure is not stable across time and is related to the merger cycle.     

Firm Networks and Korean Subsidiaries in the United States

ABSTRACT This article examines the role of intra‐, inter‐, and extra‐firm networks in influencing the location and investment of Korean firms and their subsidiaries in the U.S. Based on a survey of Korean subsidiaries in the U.S. in 2004, this article finds that inter‐firm relations with customers and suppliers, as well as intra‐firm relations in the form of parent firms’ knowledge of the U.S. play an important role in locational decision. Korean subsidiaries’ relationships with U.S. places are strongly influenced by home‐based practices that favor hierarchical intra‐firm organization and embedded sociopolitical extra‐firm relationships that emphasize blood, school, and regional ties. Location in U.S. industrial clusters does not increase Korean subsidiaries’ level of autonomy from parent firm's control that could help facilitate the sourcing of local knowledge and resources. Only improved intra‐firm network positionality positively contributes to increased subsidiary autonomy. Overall, the findings indicate that while inter‐firm relations may be important in locational selection among Korean firms, network norms are largely maintained through intra‐firm and, to a lesser extent, extra‐firm relations.     

The economic benefits of forage improvement in the United States

The United States is a large country with a diversity of forage ecosystems and forage species to fill the varied management options within each ecosystem. For example, the American Seed Trade estimates seed of 5,500 varieties representing 1,500 grass and 4,000 legume species are produced annually. The economic benefits of forage improvement are both direct (seed and hay sales) and indirect (saleable animal products, nitrogen fixation and conservation uses). The benefits of improving forages through breeding are likewise important due to the current use of improved varieties to underpin these systems and their direct and indirect products. Because of the diversity of species and management systems, only a few case studies were examined in this paper to estimate these benefits. These were the alfalfa (Medicago sativa L.) industry (economic value of US$8.1 billion per year), the forage and livestock systems of the southeastern USA (economic value estimated overall at US$11.4 billion per year), and switchgrass (Panicum virgatum L.) and its potential use as bio-energy feedstock (economic value of needing an additional 28 million acres of production to supply the estimated future feedstock needs). The overall conclusion is that the economic benefits from forage improvement in the USA have been, and continue to be, immense. However, future resources are going to fewer crops, and these crops are the ones that have greater economic value and where biotechnology can be applied. This will favor alfalfa and penalize forage grasses. Even for crops with an identifiable path to market, this concentration of resources in fewer hands requires development of consortia where organizations can leverage their resources with others who possess complementary resources. The Consortium for Alfalfa Improvement is a good example of how this could work.     

美国棉花产量预报技术研究

为向外贸部门提供经营决策的科学依据，本文在研究美国棉花带气候条件与棉花产量关系基础上，建立了美国棉花产量的统计预报技术方法，其中包括数理统计、遥相关因子、美国气候因、相似分析、专家评估和社会经济计量等新技术的具体应用，从而获得了较高的预报准确率和较好的社会经济效益。     

The Effects of Environmental Regulation on Business Location in the United States

This article empirically examines whether variations in state environmental regulations have affected the location of manufacturing branch plants by the Fortune 500 companies. Using several measures of environmental regulation, no statistically significant effects of environmental regulation on business location are found. For most manufacturing industries, the estimates are precise enough to rule out the possibility of large effects of environmental regulation on business location. For highly polluting industries, however, the variance in the estimates is quite large. We cannot rule out the possibility of effects of environmental regulation on the location of highly polluting industries that are large enough to be important to policymakers.     

Estimated inventory of livestock and poultry manure resources in the United States

Livestock and poultry manure is a valuable resource which may be effectively used to supplement or replace inorganic fertiliser and livestock feed, or for energy production. Ineffective utilisation may result in a wasted resource or pollution from improper storage and disposal.About 100 million metric tons of manure (dry basis) were estimated to have been voided by livestock and poultry in the US in 1974. About 47% was produced by beef cattle on range, 23% by dairy cattle and 12% by hogs. The estimated amounts of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium voided with the manure were 3·7, 0·9 and 2·2 million metric tons, respectively.Significant changes often occur in the amounts of manure and nutrients after voiding, when considering different lengths storage time and different types of waste handling system. The quantity of manure in 1974 decreased about 11% to 90 million metric tons as a result of these losses. Nitrogen decreased to 2·4 million tons. Approximately half the manure was estimated to have been produced in areas where economic collection was feasible. The remainder was voided by animals on range and pastureland.In 2260 counties of the United States in 1974, at least 50% of the manure was produced by one commodity. In almost 70% of those counties, beef cattle on pasture or range produced the majority of the manure. Considering only the manure which is economically recoverable, in about 56% of the 2168 counties dairy cattle were the major contributor, followed by feeder cattle, hogs and broilers in decreasing order of importance.Estimated concentrations of manure on available cropland were highest in the New England region, followed by the mid-Atlantic, south Atlantic and Pacific regions. The number of livestock and poultry could increase from one-third to about five times—depending on geographic region—and still not exceed the minimum agronomic loading rate.     

Immigration and Ethnic Entrepreneurship: A Comparative Study in the United States

Using Singer's typology of different types of immigration gateways, this study mainly addresses how metropolitan area conditions impact ethnic labor force entrepreneurial choices across ethnicity and gender, within the contexts of different types of immigration gateways. Employing the 5 percent 2000 Integrated Public Usable Microdata Samples and a multilevel regression strategy, this study demonstrates that different types of immigration gateways have distinctive impacts on ethnic entrepreneurship. After controlling for both personal‐ and metropolitan‐level characteristics, it is found that whites and blacks are more likely to own businesses in newer immigration gateways, while Hispanics and Asians are more likely to do so in the more established gateways. In addition, differences as to the interaction effects of gender and regional labor markets are the most significant for blacks and Asians. Such interaction effects reshape gender differences in business ownership across ethnic groups.     

Metropolitan growth and decline in the United States: an empirical analysis

"Urban growth rates are documented for the largest United States Metropolitan Statistical Areas for the periods 1965-70 and 1975-80. The spatial pattern associated with these growth rates tends to reinforce the sunbelt-frostbelt dichotomy, as the majority of cities with positive migration rates for both time periods are located outside of the heavily industrialized Northeast and Midwest regions of the country. Two and three-group discriminant analyses indicate that manufacturing activity, local tax rates, and spending on education, are particularly important discriminators between growing and declining cities."     

Migration regions and interstate labor flows by occupation in the United States

"This paper investigates the migration patterns of occupational groups [in the United States]. The results confirm previous analyses of the differences in movement behavior between occupations but, in addition, show that this variation is a function of the industrial sector of employment. The chief aim of the paper, however, is to uncover the geography of labor flows for different occupational groups using a principal components analysis of interstate flow matrices....Results indicate that migration regions vary by occupation and industry and we argue that these differences reflect job information flows and regional employment structure for various classes of labor." Data are from the Public Use Microdata Sample A taken from the 1980 census.     

The Japanese Banking Presence in the United States and Its Regional Distribution

The Japanese presence in U.S. banking markets is of particular significance. Japanese represent slightly over one-half of the total foreign banking presence in the U.S., concentrated in two states (California and New York). The growth of Japanese direct investment in the U.S. and the yen/dollar exchange rate appear to be the two most important economic factors influencing this rising Japanese banking presence. Japanese legislation liberalizing the flow of investment in and out of Japan, beginning in 1980, is a very important factor. Also, the International Banking Act of 1978 may be important in explaining the recent growth of Japanese bank branches in California.