Abstract
The shift from rationalistic to behavioral accounts of human action in geography has entailed a radical change in our accounts of spatial choice. It is now a commonplace that in many non-prescriptive contexts a probabilistic and psychologically-based epistemology of choice is preferable to the deterministic account provided by classic consumer theory. This transition has not been accompanied by explicit methodological discussion of the profoundly different mathematical structures underlying algebraic and probabilistic choice. The contrast has been explicitly dealt with in the literatures of economics and psychology2 as well as geographically-oriented discussions.3 One context in which the implications of probabilistic choice urgently require clarification is revealed preference analysis of destination choice in shopping travel. Central place theory and market area analysis provide our most elaborate theoretical models of this behavior. Both espouse an algebraic account of individual choice. Both at least in their classic ‘un-map-transformed’ versions compare unfavorably in descriptive ability with the Huff model4 which is simple and atheoretical, but probabilistic. Presumably, progress in the study of probabilistic individual choice will lead to theoretically explicit structures which at least equal the Huff model in descriptive power.
he support of the Natural Science Foundation (Grant SOC76-15525) is gratefully acknowledged.
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Notes
H. D. Block and J. Marschak, ‘Random Ordering and Stochastic Theories of Response’, in I. Olkin et al. (eds.), Contributions to Probability and Statistics, pp. 97–132; G. M. Becker, M. H. DeGroot and J. Marschak, ‘Stochastic Models of Choice Behavior’, in Behavioral Science 8 (1963), 41–55; N. Georgescu-Roegen, ‘Threshold in Choice and the Theory of Demand’, in Econometrica 26 (1958), 157–68; R. D. Luce and P. Suppes, ‘Preference Utility and Subjective Probability’, in R. D. Luce, R. R. Bush, and E. Galanter (eds.), Handbook of Mathematical Psychology 3, Wiley, N.Y., 1965.
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J. S. Pipkin, ‘Theoretical versus Planning Solutions of Optimal Store Location with Probabilistic Models of Buying Behavior’, paper given at Northeastern Regional Science Association Meetings, Ithaca, 1976.
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For example Charles Rivers Associates, A Disaggregated Behavioral Model of Urban Travel Demand: Final Report, Washington, D.C., 1972.
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R. G. Golledge, ‘Some Equilibrium Models of Consumer Behavior’, in Economic Geography 46 (1970), 417–24.
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© 1979 D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht, Holland
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Pipkin, J.S. (1979). Problems in the Psychological Modelling of Revealed Destination Choice. In: Gale, S., Olsson, G. (eds) Philosophy in Geography. Theory and Decision Library, vol 20. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-9394-5_14
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-9394-5_14
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