Incorporating competitors' reactions in facility location decisions: A market equilibrium approach

When a firm locates a new plant, and begins producing and shipping product to markets, this typically stimulates reactions by other firms supplying those markets. This suggests that to truly make a profit maximizing location decision, a firm must anticipate the market's reaction in the location decision-making process. In this paper, we review the development of a class of models designed to determine the profit maximizing location decision for a firm seeking to establish a manufacturing facility (or facilities) on a network characterized by either competitive or oligopolistic economic competition. One particular model from this class is presented, and the importance of anticipating the reaction to a location decision is illustrated through numerical examples of the model.