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Q2 Z2,(Q2) Z2(Q2) - Institute for Water Resources - U.S. Army

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interesting expressions. However, there would not be much difficulty in<br />

'using it in a concrete case.<br />

4. Summary and Conclusion.<br />

In the spatial competition model presented at the beginning<br />

of this chapter there were two places where a homogeneous commodity was<br />

produced under conditions of perfect competition and constant costs of<br />

-production. There<strong>for</strong>e, the prices of this commodity at the places of<br />

production equal the average cost of production and are constant regardless<br />

of the quantity produced. It followed that the delivered price of one<br />

unit of commodity from either center of production was equal to the<br />

relevant cost of production plus the cost of transportation. There was only<br />

one mode of transportation in this very simple model. The commodity being<br />

homogeneous, the buyers were choosing to buy from the center of production<br />

with the lowest delivered price. The boundary of the two production centers'<br />

respective markets was given by the locus of the points where the deliveries<br />

were equal and the buyers indifferent as to the origin. The amount sold at<br />

each point could be determined by the demand curve particular to each buying<br />

point confronted with the lowest delivered price as shown in diagram 13.<br />

But this determination goes beyond the problem of market boundaries.<br />

In the transportation analog, the homogeneous "good" offered to<br />

the farmers was a very special one: 'to have a ton of grain at the market<br />

place'. The price of this "good" was zero and constant at the market place<br />

itself so that its delivered price anywhere in the space was equal to its<br />

transportation cost. Two means of transportation Were available: the road<br />

(or the rail) using a direct route to the marketplace, and a combination of<br />

; modes, road-water, through an indirect route. Again, the buyers or farmers<br />

I were choosing the cheapest way, and boundaries could be derived as the locus<br />

of the points where, costs being equal, the farmers were indifferent. At<br />

first it was assumed that the transportation services offered by the two<br />

routes were identical, and that only their rates, or direct money outlays,<br />

were unequal. Then time and service differences were introduced and<br />

translated into additional costs <strong>for</strong> the shippers, under the assumption that<br />

they were moneywise maximizing. In some cases, the solution <strong>for</strong> the boundary<br />

76

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