Interregional Economic Interactions in Light of the Central Place Theory

The article examines the main functional hierarchy models of central places, based on different systems of axioms and, accordingly, reproducing different spatial structures of economic interactions. The possibility of using these models in studies of a wider class of hierarchical systems of central places is substantiated, in which the central places are not settlements, characterized by relations of mutual location and subordination, but regions—elements of the national economic space, characterized by relations of coalition productivity. For the spatial structures of economic interactions described by the functional hierarchy models of W. Christaller, J. Tinbergen, and A. Lösch, matrices of income flows and spatial multipliers were constructed. Income in the Christaller and Tinbergen sequentially inclusive hierarchy models is determined by systems of recursive equations; in the model of a fuzzy hierarchy within Lösch's economic landscape, by a system of simultaneous equations. It is shown that to identify the types of spatial structures themselves—sequentially inclusive or fuzzy hierarchy—the nesting parameter of market zones as such is not particularly important and the polymorphism of the system of central places can be determined by the structural parameters of spatial multipliers. The resulting income flow matrices differ mainly in the number of allocated levels of the functional hierarchy and the configuration of counterflows of goods between different levels. In Lösch's model, in comparison with other models, the role of intraregional effects in the formation of income of various levels of the hierarchy is lower, and the role of systemic effects, accordingly, is higher. The directions for the search for meaningful generalizations in the transition from theory to the central place concept, oriented towards the study of a wider class of hierarchical systems, are determined: rejection of planar projections; determination of the generalized characteristics of the system of central places (the mass of central places and the “distance” between them); development of principles for coordinating the conclusions of theoretical and conceptual structures and formulation and solution of the problem of multilevel analysis.