Jay M. Gould

Information, never before available, on levels of affluence and the quality of life in every Zip code area in which Americans reside is contained in this book. The Council On Economic Priorities (CEP), a non-profit research agency committed to the exploration of issues of corporate social responsibility, has been engaged in a study of the relationship between the generation and disposal of toxic waste and the regional variation in cancer mortality rates for some time. A CEP study, Toxic Waste and Cancer: The Link ls Getting Stronger (published in September, 1984), established a small but statistically significant association between cancer and toxic waste at the county level. For small counties with petrochemical concentrations, the association appeared to be particularly high. CEP chose therefore to continue its studies at the 5 digit Zip code level, because the average 5 digit Zip code area is one-tenth the size of the typical county.

Originally published in 1979. An Input/output database is an information system carrying current data on the intermediate consumption of any product or service by all the specified major firms that consume it. This book begins with a survey of how the interrelationships of an economic system can be represented in a two-dimensional model which traces the output of each economic sector to all other sectors. It talks about how the use of such databases to identify major buyers and sellers can illuminate problems of economic policy at the national, regional, and corporate level and aid in analyzing factors affecting the control of inflation, energy use, transportation, and environmental pollution. The book discusses how advances in database technology, have brought to the fore such issues as the right to individual privacy, corporate secrecy, the public’s right of access to stored data, and the use of such information for national planning in a free-enterprise society.

Originally published in 1979. An Input/output database is an information system carrying current data on the intermediate consumption of any product or service by all the specified major firms that consume it. This book begins with a survey of how the interrelationships of an economic system can be represented in a two-dimensional model which traces the output of each economic sector to all other sectors. It talks about how the use of such databases to identify major buyers and sellers can illuminate problems of economic policy at the national, regional, and corporate level and aid in analyzing factors affecting the control of inflation, energy use, transportation, and environmental pollution. The book discusses how advances in database technology, have brought to the fore such issues as the right to individual privacy, corporate secrecy, the public’s right of access to stored data, and the use of such information for national planning in a free-enterprise society.