In the long-standing discussion of how to best prepare urban planning students to practice effectively in other countries, scholars generally fall into two camps: those that take a general principles approach and those that argue that planning is best taught within a specific context Many argue that North American planning education is irrelevant for practice in other countries, but little empirical
T often considered the most important tool for the study of a regional economy. Since their introduction in the early 195Os, input-output models have been used to analyze various aspects of a regional economy, predominately to generate sectoral forecasts and impacts at the state level. The benefits of having an input-output table, however, have been eclipsed by the difficulties and the excessive costs of obtaining necessary data. Only a few reliable tables have been constructed from detailed regional surveys, and prosects for future funding of this type of study are dim. Unfortunately, this situation occurs at a time when states like Michigan are heavily engaged in the promotion of economic development and have available only inadequate input-output information. It is not surprising therefore to find a renewed interest among researchers in the search for ways to construct new tables or to update old ones from a minimum of survey data.The use of economic input-output tables for urban and regional analysis has been restricted by the excessive cost of gathering appropriate full survey data. Scientists from various disciplines have attempted to obtain input-output data by using nonsurvey techniques or by applying a minimum of survey data. The proposals offered in the literature have not been quite satisfactory, but the demand for the various uses of input-output methods has recently increased along with the concern for setting rational urban and regional development policies. From all techniques proposed, the RAS technique is considered superior to other nonsurvey techniques, although it is still quite
Bruce W m . Pigozzi is an assistant professor of geography at Michigan State University. Rene C . Hinojosa is an associate professor in the School of Urban Planning and Landscape Architecture and in the Department of Geography at Michigan StateUniversity . inaccessible to practitioners. (See equation 1 for an explanation of RAS.)Attempts to produce accurate, nonsurvey, regional input-output tables from limited data by using RAS methods have been hampered by two major problems. First, base tables are not universally available and, if available, they are suspect, as few result from full survey techniques. Second, the cost of gathering accurate intermediate inputs and outputs (needed for the constraints of the biproportional adjustment of the conventional RAS method) is nearly as great as that of producing a full survey table.McMenamin and Haring, in a controversial paper, tried to overcome the data requirements of the constraints by adjusting the full table to gross outputs and gross outlays.' Although this procedure eliminated the need to estimate the intermediate vectors, it raised the question of the validity of extending to final demand and value added the biproportional relationship. It also produced a second criticism-that of determining final demand and value added endogenously. * Recently, we have shown that the problem of gathering intermediate inputs and outputs might be addressed by using employment informatio...
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