• Journal of the Korean association of regional geographers
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.151-162
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• 1997

Although modern versions of the traditional Von $Th{\ddot{u}}nen$ theory have contributed to a description of spatial organization in agriculture, they did not incorporate the market mechanism as an integral part of location theory. This deficiency has been indicated and new mathematical structure has been proposed elsewhere by the author. The closed model, which simultaneously considered a basic principle of supply and demand, exposed a computational complexity. Based on the problem, this study attempts to extend market mechanism in order to consider the influence of city (market) size in agricultural location theory. To theoretically explore the economic relationship in a location theory, this study simplifies agricultural activity as just two activities in one-dimensional spatial economy. The problem has been solved by equating total supply and demand of agricultural products, and then by determining each agricultural price from the relationship. All of the mathematical problems have been arranged in matrix form. First, the traditional model and closed model have been compared by quantitative comparative statics which provides the sensitivity test for each model. The results have shown that the traditional model shows a relatively excessive change in land use, besides the deficiency of a constant agricultural price. Second, the effects of the size of market town and its population increase were examined, using the closed model. In this case, the price of agricultural product is increased, and the land use is extended outward. This proves that locational rent is related to the expansion of land use. Third, environmental uncertainty was associated with the closed model, in order to further consider the difference of farmers attitude in strategic perspective. In this study, two extreme attitudes, which reflects the maximum average expected returns and the maximum guaranteed returns, were examined in their land use and their effects on the prices of agricultural products. It was shown that the two farmers attitudes can be interconnected with location theory. Due to the exogenous data, the differences in the area of land use and total quantities of agricultural products were not clearly shown in this study. However, it was shown that the land use pattern is very different. That is, maximum guaranteed return model reveals a mixed land use pattern around the market town. Basically, this study shows some spatial and economic implications related to Von $Th{\ddot{u}}nen$ model.