通信技術革新と企業内立地行動の変化に関する研究

抄録

The objective of this paper is to propose a theoretical model of non-monocentric urban land use, in which we consider the possible impacts of telecommunication technologies on the spatial organization of office activities in metropolitan areas.
Departing from traditional location theory (which treats a firm as a single-unit entity), in this paper we consider that each firm consists of multiple units which exchange information or services. Specifically, we develop a general equilibrium model of the city, in which each firm consists of a front-unit (e. g., business office) and back-unit (e. g., plant or back-office). Each front-unit interacts with all other front-units for the purpose of business communications, while each back-unit exchanges information or management services only with the front-unit of the same firm. Each firm must choose the locations of its front-unit and back-unit optimally. The equilibrium spatial configuration of the city is determined as an outcome of interactions among all firms and households through competitive land and labor markets. We show that depending on the parameters, eleven different equilibrium configurations of a city emerges.
In particular, it has been demonstrated that the advancement of intrafirm communication technology will eventually lead to dichotomy of firm activities, where the front-unit activity (specialized in extrafirm communications) will concentrate in the city center, while the back-unit activity will be located in the far suburbs. Hence, it was be conclude that the advancement of intrafirm communication technology does indeed provide a major incentive for job-suburbanization.