The Use of Cones to Determine the Market Shares of Service Establishments in a Single Market

This article makes use of the shape of cones to describe the characteristics of market demand at a single location. It then uses the physical properties of cones and their intersections, supported by spacial economic theory, to determine the market shares of service establishments located within a single market. The results not only attach quantitative values to the importance of central place, but also emphasise the flexibility of the model's structure and point to a number of additional uses to which it may be applied. Finally, the model establishes a distance decay function which is based on economic reasoning.