Interregional Economic Interactions in the Light of Central Place Theory

Abstract

This paper considers basic models of functional hierarchy of central places, which are based on different systems of axioms and, therefore, reproduce different spatial structures of economic interactions. This study substantiates the possibility of using these models in researches of wider class of hierarchical systems of central places, where central places are not the settlements, characterized by relations of mutual location and subordination, but the regions, the elements of national economic space, characterized by relations of coalition productivity. For the spatial structures of economic interactions described by Christaller, Tinbergen, and Losch functional hierarchy models, matrices of income flows and spatial multipliers are constructed. The incomes in the models of successively inclusive hierarchy of Christaller and Tinbergen are determined on the basis of the system of recursive equations, in the model of fuzzy hierarchy within economic landscape of Losch – on the basis of the system of simultaneous equations. It’s shown that for identification of types of spatial structures themselves – successively inclusive or fuzzy hierarchy, the parameter of nesting market areas as such has no special importance, and the polymorphism of the central places system can be determined by the structural parameters of spatial multipliers. The resulting matrices of income flows differ mainly in the number of allocated levels of the functional hierarchy and the configuration of trade flows between different levels. Compared to other models, the role of intraregional effects in the formation of income at different levels of the hierarchy is lower in Losch’s model, and the role of system effects is higher. The directions of search for meaningful generalizations during the transition from the theory to the concept of central places, oriented to the study of a wider class of hierarchical systems, were determined. They are: refusal from planar projections; determination of generalized characteristics of the system of central places (mass of central places and ‘distance’ between them); development of principles of coordination of conclusions of theoretical and conceptual designs; formulation and solution of the problem of multilevel analysis