Harris, Curtis C., Jr. and Martin C. McGuire. 1969. "Planning Techniques for Regional Development Policy." Journal of Human Resources 4(4):466-490.

Among the fundamental issues for public policy consideration at this time is the question of what constitutes an appropriate or good regional distribution of economic activity. What course is the American economy taking in distributing population, industry, income, and employment between urban, suburban, and rural places and among the various geographic regions of the country? Should that direction be controlled or altered? How?

This paper reports on planning tools and analyses developed to investigate those questions. The study was undertaken as part of the program planning and budgeting efforts of the Economic Development Administration, where the year 1975 was used as a planning horizon. Specifically, the paper describes the following components of the analysis: (1) alternative regional projections (to 1975) of employment and income (alternatives depended on various assumptions as to national growth); (2) alternative population projections (to 1975) for comparable regions (alternatives depended on migration assumptions); (3) comparisons of labor force availabilities, and demands for labor by region.

The results of the analysis indicate, first, the importance of a national migration policy as a complement to and possibly a substitute for industrial location policies as tools for directing the regional pattern of economic growth. Second, the analysis shows that the urban centers of the country have the potential for unacceptably high unemployment rates by the year 1975.

Mr. Harris is in the Department of Economics and the Bureau of Business and Economic Research, University of Maryland, and formerly was Economic Analyst, Economic Development Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce. Mr. McGuire is in the Department of Economics, University of Maryland, and formerly was Director, Office of Program Plans and Analysis, Economic Development Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce. Mr. Harris is responsible, essentially, for the regional projection model described in this paper; Mr. McGuire is responsible for the conceptual framework for comparison of population as employment balance among regions. We are indebted to our colleague, Clopper Almon, Jr., for his penetrating review of initial results, and to John A. Flory, Harvey A. Garn, and Robert W. Raynsford for sustained participation in and contribution to the project leading to EDA's first Program Memorandum and multiyear plan, from which this article derives. We especially thank Professor Eugene Smolensky and an anonymous referee for detailed comments which substantially improved the manuscript.

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US ISSN 0022-166X

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