Cumulative APHUG Review

Environmental laws, labor availability, and access to markets are major factors affecting which of the following?

• Political affiliation

• Gross domestic product

• Property tax rates

• Manufacturing locations

Which of the following best describes Alfred Weber’s analysis of location decisions?

• It seeks to evaluate the impact of a single factor of production on location.

• It seeks to minimize costs among multiple inputs of production.

• It is applicable only in postindustrial economies with predictable spatial patterns.

• It depends on the availability of a single node, link, and input of production.

The high-tech firms of Silicon Valley in California are clustered together to take  advantage of

• cheap labor

• economies of scale

• access to markets

• agglomeration effects

Often a manufacturing company will attempt to merge with another company that possesses forward or backward links in the supply or production process. Which of the following terms best describes this type of strategy?

• Vertical integration

• Transnational corporation

• Privatization

• Agglomeration

Even though it is a relatively clean source of energy, which of the following is a disadvantage of hydroelectric power?

• The electricity generated has a lower voltage than electricity generated by traditional coal and natural gas plants.

  
  

• The generators are more complex than coal or gas generators and are expensive to purchase and maintain.

• It is not an effective power source in regions which traditionally experience less rainfall.

• It can alter the ecosystems above and below the dam site.

Which of the following concepts explains the decision to relocate market-oriented factories in the United States from the Midwest and Northeast to locations in the southern United States or Mexico?

• Comparative advantage, because products can be made more efficiently in the southern United States and Mexico. Operating costs and wages are lower, and the manufactured products are easily transported to major United States markets.

• Growth poles, because governments in southern United States cities and Mexico strive to stimulate economic development by providing a guaranteed market for all products manufactured at these locations.

• Just-in-time delivery, because the United States population is shifting to the south and west, and the Mexican population is growing. It is critical to produce goods closer to the consumer base to reduce shipping times.

• Complementarity, because the regional economy of the midwestern and northeastern United States is shifting to the service sector. There is little interest in maintaining manufacturing at these locations.

  
  

Compared with more-developed countries, which of the following statements is true of less developed countries?

• A higher percent of the labor force is engaged in food production .

• The population pyramids exhibit narrower bases .

  
  

• The per capita consumption of energy is higher .

• The natural increase of the population is lower .

Which of the following has contributed most to the deindustrialization of regions like the English Midlands and the North American Manufacturing Belt?

• The increased percentage of women in the labor force

• Competition from foreign imports

  
  

• Environmental legislation

• The formation of free trade associations

Political geographers consider which of the following as the core area of the United States?

• The Los Angeles-San Francisco area

• The New York-Washington, D.C., area

• The Chicago-Detroit area

• The Atlanta-Birmingham, Alabama, area

Debt-for-nature swaps are financial transactions in which a portion of a developing country’s foreign debt is forgiven in exchange for local investments in environmental conservation measures. Which of the following explains the significance of debt-for-nature programs?

• The programs utilize a dependency theory-based approach to improve local economic development.

• The programs provide a sustainable-development approach to reducing uneven levels of development between countries.

• The programs combat the economic decline of deindustrialization and improve service and technology development.

• The programs provide improvements in environmental health and sanitation that reduce mortality and epidemic disease rates.