Graduate Student, Geography
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Modern location theories, such as Krugman’s core-periphery model, are built on two foundation-stones: methods where “the geography of the economy itself can be derived from the behaviour of economic agents” (Brakman et al. 2009) and explanations of agglomeration “as an endogenous outcome of the economic process” (Storper 2010). The analytic methods used, however, must be kept in a tight ‘mathematical straightjacket’ (Martin 1999). On the face of it, agent-based modelling (ABM) appears perfect for breaking out of that straightjacket. Yet successful applications to traditional location theory questions are hard to find. ABM research has tended to dismiss many economic methods and assumptions as unrealistic – but in the process, useful, tested concepts have been left in the toolbox. Can ABM successfully work with some of these key concepts – utility, elasticity and product differentiation – to say useful things about location? Can anything be learned by comparing analytic and ABM approaches to location problems?
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