Spatial Papers
- "Economies of Scale and Entry in Spatial Markets," The Journal of Regional Science, May 1990, pp. 269-280.
For purposes of simplicity, short-run cost functions are widely used in spatial markets literature, even when the long-run effects of entry are in question. In this paper, I show that if a long-run cost function is incorporated into a Loschian model, counter-intuitive and novel performance characteristics can result. Under some circumstances welfare per area can decrease as cost levels decrease.
- "Spatial Retail Markets," The International Journal of Industrial Organization, June 1991, 303-313.
In retail markets, the nature of spatial cost differs markedly from specfications given in traditional spatial models. At the retail level, transportation is provided by the household and incurred on a per shopping trip basis. In traditional models, the source of transportation is ignored and the cost specified to accrue on a per unit basis. Additionally, in a retail market, spatial cost may be obviated altogether by virtue of a commute. When these characteristics are taken into account, the spatial retail model is inherently more competitive in structure and performance than the tradtional spatial model.
- "Spatial Price Discrimination and Mill Pricing: Hypermobile Multiplant Monopoly," Journal of Industrial Economics, December 1991, 723-728.
For almost two decades a literature has accumulated claiming that a monopolist can have better performance in terms of output, price and welfare if it employs spatial price discrimination rather than mill pricing. This view is , however, based on the notion of a spatially isolated firm. This paper offers an alternative view of spatial monopoly where firms are contiguous under both pricing schemes and show how this approach yields findings in favor of mill pricing.
- "Mill Pricing and Spatial Price Discrimination: Monopoly Performance and Location With Spatial Retail Markets," Journal of Regional Science, 36, 111-127, 1996.
Most of the monopoly spatial price dicrimination literature explicitly assumes uniform population density over space. It also implicitly assumes that firms are spatially isolated form each other with production and retail points that coincide in location. While departure from these assumptions have been explored separately in the lterature, it remains to examine performance and location while these assumptions are relaxed simultaneously. What emerges in this paper is a model where density functions approximate a pair of cities isolated from other cities. Each city has its own retail market, while the location of a single production or wholesale point is determined by characteristics of the two markets. Comparisons of mill pricing and spatial price discrimination found in the spatial monopoly literature can be interpreted as special cases of the more general framework provided here.
- "Cournot Retail Chains," Journal of Regional Science, 38, 481-494, 1998.
A model of spatial Cournot competition among retail firms is devised and used to assess the effect of a variety of structural factors on retail prices and profits. The model illustrates the spatial chain of interaction that firms must anticipate to reach equilibrium when organized in chains or as independents. It shows the sensitivity of price to the location stores, the number of stores per location and transportation cost.