The spatial transferability of a decompositional multiattribute preference model

An empirical test is made of the spatial transferability of a decompositional multiattribute preference model, in the context of spatial shopping behaviour. The model which is estimated for the city of Maastricht is used to predict shopping patterns in a part of the city of Eindhoven. The results indicate that the goodness of fit of the model reduces only slightly. This supports the assumption that decompositional preference models may be used to uncover utility or preference functions which are independent of spatial structure.