Geog. 361. THE ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY OF ECONOMIC ACTIVITY
QUESTIONS FROM FINAL EXAMINATIONS

Answer fifty points worth of questions. Responses to more than the assigned number of points will be scaled downward proportionally. Thus, if you attempt sixty points worth of questions and successfully answer forty your recorded score will be twenty-two ((50/60)*50=33.3). Your time likely will have been better spent concentrating on the specified number of questions. When you are finished, write your name on this exam, encircle the numbers of the questions you chose to answer (and want me to grade) and submit it with your responses.

Quest. No.; Point Value; Question or Challenge

1. 8 pts. Characterize manufacturing in ways that distinguish it from the four or five (depending on whose classification scheme you may prefer) other principle sectors of commercial economies.
2. 8 pts. When measured in terms of total numbers of employees or sums of wages paid, manufacturing seems to be on the decline in developed nations. How is it that other measures, like sale values of manufactured goods or values added by manufacture, continue to rise in those same countries?
3. 8 pts. Differentiate between the normative, behavioral and structural approaches to the study of industrial location.
4. 8 pts. The authors suggest that factory closings may offer important bits of information vis-a-vis site-selection decisions for opening new facilities, but that such events often are overlooked. Discuss.
5. 8 pts. When selecting sites for new or expanded operations, how might operators view locations of other firms in the same industry? ...in other industries?
6. 8 pts. Multi-national or global firms are accused of contributing to the "de-industrialization" of many of the most developed nations and that free-trade agreements like NAFTA simply accelerate the process. Does that thinking reflect the "normative," "behavioral" or "structural" approach to the study of industrial location? ...two of the three? ...all three? Justify your answer.
7. 8 pts. How do vertical and horizontal integration and diversification benefit firms and thereby contribute to their growth? What are the geographical implications of each form of corporate expansion?
8. 8 pts. The fact that buyers of manufacturers' goods are geographically dispersed may limit producers' scale economies. Explain.
9. 8 pts. The evolution of the petrochemical industry has led to a rather schizophrenic pattern of modern production facilities that suggests market orientation in some cases and materials orientation in others. Explain this dichotomy.
10. 8 pts. A number of rapidly developing nations, in particular the so-called "four tigers" of Asia, share much of the history of many less-developed countries, but since the end of European colonialism have undergone development experiences that are very different from those that remain LDCs. What is it about NICs that makes them different from the many nations that remain less developed.
11. 8 pts. Justify governmental policies regarding regional- and industrial development regarding the offering of incentives to manufacturers to expand local operations or select sites for new facilities within appropriate jusidictions. What are the risks that governments may face that may result from such policies and how might various tax payers suffer?
12. 8 pts. The now several-decades-old trend toward suburbanization of manufacturing in large metropolitan regions may provide a mixed assortment of positive and negative consequences for individual operators. Discuss.
13. 8 pts. The authors suggest that positive and negative externalities arising from manufacturing activity have very different "impact geographies." Discuss
14. 5 pts. Why is it that concerns pertaining to what, where, how and how much to produce are different for operators in the secondary sector of the economy from those confronting operators in the primary and tertiary sectors?
15. 15 pts. In terms of contributions to U.S. production, manufacturing peaked during the 1950s at somewhat more than one-third of the total value of the nation's output. Its contribution since that decade has leveled off at a somewhat lower level while those of the primary and tertiary (including quaternary and quinary) sectors have followed reciprocal long-term trends of decline and increase, respectively. What forces are at work to hold manufacturing to a fairly constant fraction of total national production.
16. 8 pts. In developing an approach to analyzing manufacturing location, Weber envisioned several imaginary surfaces and devised means of representing them on maps. What are these surfaces, and how are they displayed?
17. 6 pts. The authors suggest that factory closings may offer important bits of information vis-a-vis site-selection decisions for opening new facilities, but that such events often are overlooked. Discuss.
18. 8 pts. In two analyses of why firms select the sites they do, Greenhut's study of the southern portion of the U.S. yielded results that are quite different from those reported in Griffin's study of the New York metropolitan area. What were the conflicting findings, and how can they be explained?
19. 10 pts. The class discussion of a manufacturer considering expansion at the current site of operations or at alternative locations, all adjacent to the right-of-way of a bankrupt railroad is an example of one approach to the analysis of manufacturing location decisions in complex and changing business environments. Which approach (among the five discussed by the authors) does it represent? How does that approach differ from at least two of the others?
20. 8 pts. What is vertical integration, and what characteristics of manufacturing processes allow attempts by growing firms to accomplish it successfully?
21. 15 pts. The German economist August Losch observed that if it weren't for scale economies, manufacturing would occur everywhere. Conversely, he noted that if it were not for transportation costs, manufacturing would be concentrated at only a few locations. Justify Losch's statements using examples of modern manufacturing patterns to support your interpretations.
22. 8 pts. Saudi Arabia and other oil-producing nations ship crude oil to the U.S. and other oil-deficient countries, while Canada and other timber-producers ship uncut logs ("round wood") to Japan and other nations in need of wood. Justify these and movements of similar materials about the world in the context of decisions as to where manufacturing occurs.
23. 8 pts. The manufacture of televisions, VCRs and other entertainment electronics in newly industrializing countries (NICs) for export to more industrialized nations is sometimes characterized as an example of "international Fordism." What is it about the manufacture of these kinds of goods that justifies such a label?
24. 10 pts. Exploitation of forward and backward linkages between steps in sequential manufacturing processes is a key element of growth-pole theory. How do they come into play in this development strategy? What role do linkages play in supporting the population and migration policies of national governments?
25. 8 pts. Widespread availability of general business services is seen to be an element of one form of agglomeration economies, while broad availability of industry-specific services is associated with another. What are the two varieties of agglomeration economies, and what are some of their other characteristics?
26. 8 pts. Pricing schemes that are widely used in some industries tend to encourage entry of small producers within or close to major centers of production and consumption while other schemes used in other industries encourage small operators to take up production at minor centers far from large operators. Discuss
27. 1 pt. ea. Define and/or identify in the context of this course:

    a) scale economies     b) normative analysis   c) Weber
    d) Chapman             e) forward linkage      f) isotim
    g) growth pole         h) product life cycle   i) NIC

28. 1 pt. ea. Define and/or identify in the context of this course:

    a) enterprise zone     b) game theory          c) Walker
    d) materials index     e) diversification      f) diffusion
    g) freight rate        h) propulsive industry  i) assembly costs