Daniel R. Vining

A Demonstration That the Current Deconcentration of Population in the United States is a Clean Break with the Past

An initial reaction among many observers of urban America to recently released data showing a net migration out of its metropolitan areas is that this phenomenon must reflect nothing more than an accelerated expansion of these areas beyond their conventionally defined borders. This paper tests this hypothesis by tracing out the behavior of the Hoover index for five levels of areal disaggregation in the US. In Statistical Geography, Duncan and his collaborators found that for the period 1900–1950 there was dispersal at the finest and coarsest grains of areal disaggregation (reflecting city—suburb and East—West dispersal, respectively) and concentration at intermediate grains (reflecting rural-urban migration). We find that, by 1970, dispersal was occurring at all levels of areal disaggregation. That is, using the county as our basic unit of analysis, and building up increasingly more aggregated regions based on these units, we are unable to find an increase in concentration at any level of areal aggregation. We conclude that dispersal is more than a statistical artifact of the way in which metropolitan areas are defined.

Recent Trends in Migration between Core and Peripheral Regions in Developed and Advanced Developing Countries

The main finding of this article is that net internal migration to the core regions in the countries of the developed world, which subsided in the 1970s, increased in the 1980s, although not to the level of the 1960s. In some countries of northwest Europe there is a balance now in net flows between core and periphery. In the countries of the periphery of Europe and Japan net internal migration to the core regions increased slightly in the 1980s. Net migration flows to the periphery have completely reversed in Canada, and net flows out of the core regions of the United States have been significantly reduced. In eastern Europe, however, there is still moderate net migration to the core regions without any interruption as seen in western Europe, North America, and Japan. In South Korea and Taiwan rates of net migration to the core regions have been reduced from their high levels of the 1970s, but they are still quite high and show no clear sign of a break from the past.

Subfertility among the very intelligent: An examination of the American Mensa

Abstract Recent data on post-war birth cohorts in the U.S.A. show a negative relationship between IQ and fertility, both actual and expected. Previous investigators (e.g. Bajema, the Reeds and Waller) had found a slightly positive relationship for certain pre-war birth cohorts. This secular change in the relationship between IQ and fertility is replicated here for data on the membership of the American Mensa. Members born before the war exhibit a fertility below but close to that of the equivalent cohorts in the nation as a whole. Members born during and after the war exhibit a fertility that is substantially lower than that of the equivalent national cohorts. Apparently, rising fertility, which characterized the period in which the pre-war birth cohorts bore their children, causes a convergence in birth rates across IQ classes. Declining and/or low fertility, which characterizes the period in which the post-war birth cohorts are bearing their children, has the opposite effect, i.e. a divergence in birth rates across IQ classes, with the lower birth rates in the higher-IQ classes. The membership of Mensa may not be a representative sample of the high-IQ population as a whole, as it seems to attract a disproportionate number of low procreators even for this population. However, there is no reason to believe that changes in fertility rates across cohorts within Mensa, relative to changes in the national fertility rates, do not reliably reflect changes in fertility rates across cohorts within the high-IQ population of the U.S.A. as a whole, again relative to those of the nation, though these rates may be fluctuating around different means.

Recent Migration Patterns in the Developed World: A Clarification of Some Differences between our and NASA's Findings

This paper is a reply to two recently published critiques of our finding of a discontinuity in the recent internal migration patterns of Europe, Japan, and North America. Using data from the HAS A Human Settlements Systems Task, Hall–Hay and Gordon both fail to detect any significant narrowing in the differential between the growth rates of metropolitan areas and the growth rates of rural areas in Europe and Japan over the period 1950–1970 (they concede that this difference has disappeared, and has even been reversed in the United States). Our rejoinder here consists simply of a clarification of our own independent research on regional population change in these same countries. Unlike the IIASA project, this research has been confined, in the case of Europe and Japan, to a study of the trends in net internal migration to their politically and economically dominant core regions, for which data are available for the post-1970 period as well. Most of the disagreement over the presence or absence of a discontinuity in the regional population trends in the countries of western Europe and Japan can be explained by this simple difference in the principal orientations of the two studies, the first towards all metropolitan areas in these countries for the period 1950–1970, and emphasizing the total population growth of these areas, the other towards their densest, richest, and generally most important regions for the longer period 1950–1980, and emphasizing net internal migration to these regions rather than their overall population growth. For there is little doubt, as we demonstrate here, that there has been an abrupt and precipitous reduction in net internal migration towards the core regions of many countries in the developed world in the 1970s, though a comparable reduction may not have taken place to all metropolitan areas in the aggregate. Gordons and Hall–Hays claim to have rebutted our thesis is thus seen to be based on a misconception of the subject of our study.

On the possibility of the reemergence of a dysgenic trend with respect to intelligence in American fertility differentials: an update

This paper is simply an update of the authors previous study of this subject (Vining, Intelligence, 6, 241–264, 1982). The previous study examines a cohort of women aged 25–34 yr in 1978. This study examines the same cohort 10 years later, aged 35–44 yr in 1988. An obvious criticism of the previous study is that the women had not completed their child-bearing in 1978. In 1988, they mostly have. The same negative relationship is found between IQ and fertility as is found in Vining (1982). This negative relationship is more pronounced in non-whites than whites. The overall decline in mean IQ implied by these data is less than the one IQ point per generation that is reported in Vining (1982).

On the contribution of out-migration to changes in net migration: A time series confirmation of Beale's cross-sectional results

Recent cross-sectional studies of population migration patterns have consistently failed to find any relationship between the economic conditions prevalent in an area and the propensity of its inhabitants to emigrate. Changes in the rate of out-migration apparently occur only slowly as the age composition and mobility history of the population change. Thus, in the short run, changes in out-migration are small and contribute little to changes in net migration. This article tests this “model” of the migration process by making a time series analysis of gross and net migration between Japanese prefectures. We find that, among rural areas, changes in out-migration are a consistently significant component of changes in net migration. If changes in net migration reflect changes in economic conditions in these areas, then one can only conclude that the latter do have an effect on out-migration rates, an effect which is missed by cross-sectional studies. Beales graphical analysis, which is also cross-sectional, is a notable exception and would have predicted our results.

Urban Encroachment on Prime Agricultural Land in the United States

A recent paper by Hart (1976) demonstrates that the amount of rural land lost to urbanization in the United States is very small relative to the total supply of this land. This paper investigates the possibility that while the amount of land lost to urbanization is small, it may be predominantly land that is ideal for agriculture, or prime farmland, which unlike rural land in general is highly limited in supply. To explore this possibility, answers to three questions are sought: (1) is prime farmland in the U.S. located predominantly in the vicinity of urban areas; (2) are the areas of high population growth predomi nantly the areas with high concentrations of the good soils, and (3) what is the rate of loss of prime farmland to urbanization?

Population Redistribution towards Core Areas of Less Developed Countries, 1950-1980

This paper presents estimates of the rate of population redistribution to the core areas of 44 developing countries over the period 1950-80. Particular attention is given to the period 1970-80, a time during which the core areas of developed countries experienced substantial declines in their rates of net immigration. The principal finding is that the core areas of most developing countries are still experiencing high and, in a number of cases, increasing rates of net immigration. This finding confirms the developmental model of spatial concentration and dispersal and should lay to rest other explanations of deconcentration, including arguments that focus on diseconomies of absolute size in the core area or on fluctuations in the aggregate economy.

A note on the variability of inflation and the dispersion of relative price changes

Abstract The relationship between the variance of inflation and the variability of relative price changes is analyzed empirically. A strong positive association is found for 1948–1969 and 1948–1975. Application of Chows test indicates structural instability, and Grangers test suggests a feedback effect between these variables.

IQ/fertility relationships in Japan and Sweden.

Abstract This study explores the relationship between intelligence and family size in Japan and Sweden. In Japan, there is no relationship, once fathers education is controlled for. However, if fathers education is not controlled for, then there is a negative relationship between IQ and number of siblings. In Sweden, there is a positive relationship between IQ and fertility only for the male cohort born between 1915 and 1924. The remaining relationships, for both females and males, are neither negative nor positive.