Modeling enterprise location choice decision behavior

This study presents a location choice model that incorporates urban spatial effects for enterprises. A modeling framework is developed to analyze decisions regarding location choice for enterprises using a series of discrete choice models including multinomial logit without any urban spatial effects, multinomial logit incorporating urban spatial effects, and mixed logit incorporating urban spatial effects. In this framework, urban spatial effects, such as the urban spatial correlation among enterprises in deterministic terms and the urban spatial correlation among zones in the error term, are captured by mixed logit models in particular and discrete choice models in general. The results indicate that the urban spatial effects and the land prices in a given zone strongly affect the decision-making process of all the enterprises in the Tokyo metropolitan area. Moreover, the important role of urban spatial effects in the proposed model will be clarification through comparing the three above models. This comparison will be implemented on the basis of three types of indicators such as the log likelihood ratio, Akaike information indicator, and hit ratio of each model.