Political Parties

 

       Hotelling’s Analysis

 

1)  Assume that there are 100 houses on a straight street (each # represents a “block” of 5 houses) and their occupants are the only consumers in the area.  

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Assume that in order to save time, each consumer will shop at the nearest store.

Two shop keepers are setting up businesses and they both can’t locate at the same line between two sets of housing spaces. 

Where will they each locate to maximize their # of customers? Why?

  

2)  With all the same assumptions, what would happen if three businesses tried to locate? 

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3)  Now let’s try a different assumption!  Assume the cells below the 1-20 indicate the number of houses in each “block”

 

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5

 

15

 

25

 

 

 

 

5

5

 

 

25

 

 

 

15

 

5

4)  What about? 

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5

5

 

 

 

 

 

10

 

40

40

 

10

 

 

 

 

5

 

5

Now vary the number of businesses to 4, 5, 6!

Now pretend that the business are political parties and the numbers on the second line represent % of eligible voters along an ideological spectrum!!