Analysis of Spatial Competition with Discrete Choice Models

最近，企业选址的研究受到两个不同领域的新发展的影响。在空间经济学中，Hoteling型空间竞争模型被用来描述企业如何通过不相互合作的多阶段博弈来确定场地的价格和选址。离散选择模型的并行发展为消费者和企业行为基于随机效用概念的方式提供了新的线索。这一研究项目将综合这两种理论传统的见解，并将开发一种新的企业选址的离散选择模型。该模型将通过系统地考察一些因素对企业区位行为的概率偏好模型的影响来发展。纳入这些因素将使模型能够更真实地反映公司运营的实际情况。分析的最后阶段将包括开发一个模拟程序，使用户能够容易地检查不同条件对公司区位行为的影响。这项研究将汇集经济单位地理行为理论研究中的两条重要线索，并将增强我们对导致企业在一些地方而不是另一些地方定位的过程和标准的理解。这项工作还将提供一个改进的基础，通过它可以对企业的实际行为进行经验分析。

The study of the location of firms has been influenced recently by new developments in two different fields. In spatial economics, Hotelling-type spatial competition models have been developed to describe how firms determine the price and location of sites through multistage games in which they do not cooperate with one another. The parallel development of discrete-choice models has shed new light on the ways in which consumer and firm behavior are based on the concept of random utility. This research project will synthesize insights from these two theoretical traditions and will develop a new discrete-choice model of firm location. The model will be developed by systematically examining the impacts of a number of factors on probabilistic preference models of firm locational behavior. Inclusion of these factors will enable the model to more realistically reflect the actual conditions under which firms operate. The final stage of analysis will consist of development of a simulation program that would enable users to readily examine the impacts of different conditions on the locational behavior of firms. This research will bring together two significant lines of inquiry in the theoretical examination of the geographic behavior of economic units and will enhance our understanding of the processes and criteria that lead firms to locate in some places and not in others. This work will also provide an improved basis by which the actual behavior of firms may be empirically analyzed.