Sabina Buczkowska edited If_you_wait_to_do__.tex  over 7 years ago

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This thesis is breathing new life into the location choice models of establishments. The need for methodological advances in order to model more realistically the complexity of establishments' decision-making processes, such as their optimal location choices is the key motivation of this thesis. An establishment is defined as a distinct economic unit that produces goods or services at a single physical location. In contrast, a firm is a legal entity that consists of one or more establishments or plants under common ownership and control (van Wissen, 2000).  First, location choice models use geo-referenced data, for which choice sets have an explicit spatial component. It is thus critical to understand and represent spatial aspect in location choice models. Second, what makes these discrete choices particularly interesting and challenging to analyze is that decisions of a particular establishment are interrelated with choices of the others. These thorny problems posed by the interdependence of decisions generally cannot be assumed away, without altering the realism of the model of establishment decision making. The conventional approaches to location selection, i.e., traditional theory and methods, fail by providing only a set of systematic steps for problem-solving without considering strategic interactions between the establishments in the market. Less is known about how to correctly adapt location choice models to study establishments' discrete choices when they are interrelated. Third, a firm can open a number of units and serves the market from multiple locations. As such, Once again,  a conventional location  theory may not apply be suitable  to situations wherein individual establishments are part instead  of larger locating independently from each other, form a whole large  organization under common strategy and control.