Background
BECKMANN, Martin Joseph was born in 1924 in Ratingen, W. Germany.
(Continuing the (neo-)classical tradition of von Thünen, L...)
Continuing the (neo-)classical tradition of von Thünen, Launhardt, Weber, Palander, and Lösch this book offers a fresh approach to the location of industries and other economic activities, of market areas, spatial price distribution, locational specialization, urban and transportation systems, and spatial interaction in general. It uses elementary economic reasoning supported by simple mathematical models, some classical, some new. The mathematical methods are presented in numbered Mathematical Notes. The author has been active in this field since 1950.
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(The design and location of production facilities are impo...)
The design and location of production facilities are important aspects of corporate strategy which can have a significant impact on the socio economy of nations and regions. Here, these decisions are recognized as being interrelated; that is, the optimal plant design (input mix and output level) depends on the location of the plant, and the optimal location of the plant depends on the design of the plant. Until the late 1950s, however, the questions of where a firm should locate its plant and what should be its planned input mix and output level were treated, for the most part, as separate questions, and were investigated by different groups of research ers. Although there was some recognition that these questions are inter I 1928; Hoover 1948; Isard 1956], no detailed analysis related [e. g. , Pre doh or formal structure was developed combining these two problems until the work of Moses [1958]. In recent years scholarly interest in the integrated production/locaton decision has been increasing rapidly. At the same time that research on the integrated production/location problem was expanding, significant related work was occurring in the fields of operations research, transportation science, industrial engineering, eco nomics, and geography. Unfortunately, the regional scientists working on the production/location problem had little contact with researchers in other fields. They generally publish in different journals and attend dif ferent professional meetings. Consequently, little of the recent work in these fields has made its way into the production/location research and vice versa.
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(Dynamic Programming is the analysis of multistage decisio...)
Dynamic Programming is the analysis of multistage decision in the sequential mode. It is now widely recognized as a tool of great versatility and power, and is applied to an increasing extent in all phases of economic analysis, operations research, technology, and also in mathematical theory itself. In economics and operations research its impact may someday rival that of linear programming. The importance of this field is made apparent through a growing number of publications. Foremost among these is the pioneering work of Bellman. It was he who originated the basic ideas, formulated the principle of optimality, recognized its power, coined the terminology, and developed many of the present applications. Since then mathe maticians, statisticians, operations researchers, and economists have come in, laying more rigorous foundations [KARLIN, BLACKWELL], and developing in depth such application as to the control of stochastic processes [HoWARD, JEWELL]. The field of inventory control has almost split off as an independent branch of Dynamic Programming on which a great deal of effort has been expended [ARRoW, KARLIN, SCARF], [WIDTIN] , [WAGNER]. Dynamic Programming is also playing an in creasing role in modem mathematical control theory [BELLMAN, Adap tive Control Processes (1961)]. Some of the most exciting work is going on in adaptive programming which is closely related to sequential statistical analysis, particularly in its Bayesian form. In this monograph the reader is introduced to the basic ideas of Dynamic Programming.
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(Economic theory is growing not only in depth but in the b...)
Economic theory is growing not only in depth but in the breadth of its application as well. This study encroaches in part on a field normally considered as the domain of Sociology. But the methods applied here are those of mathematical economics. It has not been my ambition to make this as general and as mathe matically demanding as possible. On the contrary, I wanted to present as simple an argument as possible throughout. I wish to thank Brown University for granting me a Sabbatical leave in the Fall of 1977-78 in the course of which I wrote the first draft of this monograph. I am also grateful to the late Professor Jacob Marschak and to Professor Arthur Geoffrion for sponsoring me as a Visiting Scholar of the Western Management Science Institute, Graduate School of Management, UCLA for the months of November and December 1977. The Western Management Science Institute proved to be an ideal environment for writing: protective and stimulating at the same time. I have benefitted specifically from comments received as a result of presenting Chapters IV and V in the Marschak Colloquium on December 2, 1977, in particular by Professors Intri11igator and Spiro. My greatest indebtedness is to Jacob Marschak to whom I owe my awareness of and interest in the economic theory of organizations. He was my teacher, my director and supervisor, and my fatherly friend since 1950. It is thus entirely fitting that this work should be dedicated to his memory.
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(In revising the Tinbergen Lectures I have expanded and re...)
In revising the Tinbergen Lectures I have expanded and restructured the material in an attempt to make the book more readable and more interesting. I have also tried to show more clearly its relevance to managerial and organizational practice. Some mathematical derivations have been moved to appendices. Certain sections that may be skipped in a first reading have been starred. Points that should be of interest to management include • the nature and necessity of rank (4. 1, 4. 2, 4. 4) rank assignment by counting up or down (4. 3) defining an organization's task (6. 2) calculating the required size of an organization (6. 3) • allocating supervisors in the short run (6. 7) when uniform spans of control are desirable (6. 8) • how to estimate an organization's implicit span of control (7) determining the minimal ranks in supervision (8. 3) • the advantage of flexible department lines (8. 4) measuring the leanness of an organization (8. 5) the relationship between average wage and unit labor cost (10. 2) job allocation in the short run (10. 4) • calculating the cost of supervision for particular jobs (10. 5) • recognizing economic choices in substituting managers for operatives or vice versa (11) • determining the optimal size of a research team (12) VI • setting targets (13. 1) • budgeting under full information (13. 2) • budgeting under imperfect information (13. 3) • sources of information loss (14.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/3540185151/?tag=2022091-20
(In revising the Tinbergen Lectures I have expanded and re...)
In revising the Tinbergen Lectures I have expanded and restructured the material in an attempt to make the book more readable and more interesting. I have also tried to show more clearly its relevance to managerial and organizational practice. Some mathematical derivations have been moved to appendices. Certain sections that may be skipped in a first reading have been starred. Points that should be of interest to management include • the nature and necessity of rank (4. 1, 4. 2, 4. 4) rank assignment by counting up or down (4. 3) defining an organization's task (6. 2) calculating the required size of an organization (6. 3) • allocating supervisors in the short run (6. 7) when uniform spans of control are desirable (6. 8) • how to estimate an organization's implicit span of control (7) determining the minimal ranks in supervision (8. 3) • the advantage of flexible department lines (8. 4) measuring the leanness of an organization (8. 5) the relationship between average wage and unit labor cost (10. 2) job allocation in the short run (10. 4) • calculating the cost of supervision for particular jobs (10. 5) • recognizing economic choices in substituting managers for operatives or vice versa (11) • determining the optimal size of a research team (12) VI • setting targets (13. 1) • budgeting under full information (13. 2) • budgeting under imperfect information (13. 3) • sources of information loss (14.
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BECKMANN, Martin Joseph was born in 1924 in Ratingen, W. Germany.
Vordiplom University Gottingen, 1947. Diplom., Doctor Rer. Policy University Freiburg, 1949,1950. Honorary Doctor Rer Political University Karlsruhe, 1971.
Honorary Doctor Philosophy, honorary
University UMEA, Sweden, 1981.
Research Association, Cowles Commission Research Economics, Assistant Professor Yale University, 1951-1955,1955-1959. Visiting Professor, University Heidelberg, 1959. Association Professor, Brown University, 1959-1961.
Professor Emeritus, Oregon and Economics, University Bonn, West. Germany,
1962-1969.
Tinbergen Chair, Erasmus University, Rotterdam, Netherlands, 1982. Professor of Economics, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, United States of America, since 1961.
Professor Applied Mathematics, Technical University Munich, West. Germany, since 1969. Managing Editor (with West. Krelle), Lecture Notes in Economic and Mathematical Systems (SpringerVerlag).
Association Editor, Transportation Science.
(Continuing the (neo-)classical tradition of von Thünen, L...)
(The design and location of production facilities are impo...)
(In revising the Tinbergen Lectures I have expanded and re...)
(In revising the Tinbergen Lectures I have expanded and re...)
(Economic theory is growing not only in depth but in the b...)
(Dynamic Programming is the analysis of multistage decisio...)
(Lang:- English, Pages 734. Reprinted in 2015 with the hel...)
Early work was focussed on competitive spatial market equilibrium and on the efficient utilisation of transportation facilities, developing appropriate linear and nonlinear programming models under the influence of Technology C. Koopmans. My interests then shifted to sequential decision-making as exemplified by inventory and production control, and to the economic insights found in dynamic programming. Through Jacob Marschak I was motivated to study the economics
of organisations, particularly the economic functions of supervision and rank.
I have tackled the returns to scale in management problem through the use of production functions. I have maintained an interest in the economics of transportation and have introduced utility methods into the modelling of traveller behaviour. More recently I have returned to location theory as the foundation of Regional Science an Urban Economics.
Perhaps my best known contribution has been a simple model explaining the quantitative relationships in a central place hierarchy and the distribution of city sizes.