A TEST TO ASSESS THE SIGNIFICANCE OF DIFFRENCE SPACE PREFERENCES IN CONSUMER SPATIAL CHOICE BEHAVIOR

Abstract

The study seeks to explain a dispersed population’s spatial choices of urban places for retail expenditures, specifically, it tests the previously untested hypothesis that consumers evaluate the sane spatial opportunities differently, with different evaluations of spatial opportunities being defined as differing space preferences. Using a model, which has the constraint that there are no differences in consumer space preferences, its pre dictive power is increased significantly when that constraint is relaxed. On this basis, the hypothesis that there are differing space preferences is accepted. In addition, the hypothesis is tested that differences in space preferences are related to differences in the socioeconomic characteristics of consumers. No relationship is found, and an alternative analysis is sugges ted in the light of weakness in the existing test. Finally, the hypothesis is accepted that the predictive power of the model is least where a household has to choose between towns ranked closely the model.