Hotelling meets Weber

Fu-Chuan Lai and Takatoshi Tabuchi

Regional Science and Urban Economics, 2012, vol. 42, issue 6, 1017-1022

Abstract: In this paper, spatial competition between two sellers in a market (Hotelling, 1929) and total transportation costs minimization (Weber, 1909) are combined, and equilibrium and optimum locations of firms are analyzed along with the consequent policy implications. We show that when the output prices are fixed and equal, both firms agglomerate at the market center, irrespective of the distribution of inputs. Further, we also show that when output price is endogenous, the middle point of firm locations in Hotelling's model is identical to the Weber point. Finally, we show that the locations of Hotelling's firms are far from the socially optimal location.

Keywords: Hotelling; Weber; Location competition; Social welfare (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D43 L13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0166046211001086
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:regeco:v:42:y:2012:i:6:p:1017-1022

DOI: 10.1016/j.regsciurbeco.2011.09.001

Access Statistics for this article

Regional Science and Urban Economics is currently edited by D.P McMillen and Y. Zenou

More articles in Regional Science and Urban Economics from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().