We propose a simple model to understand the economic factors that induce aggregation of some businesses over small geographical regions. The model incorporates price competition with neighboring stores, transportation costs and the satisfaction probability of finding the desired product. We show...

We generalize the conventional model of two-dimensional site percolation by including both (1) continuous deposition of particles on a two-dimensional substrate, and (2) diffusion of these particles in two-dimensions. This new model is motivated by recent thin film deposition experiments using...

This work explores search trajectories of children attempting to find targets distributed on a playing field. This task, of ludic nature, was developed to test the effect of conspicuity and spatial distribution of targets on the searcher’s performance. The searcher’s path was recorded by a...

We present an analytical solution to the two-dimensional two-stage Hotelling model with quadratic transportation costs. We assume that consumers' choice is tempered by a logit function, which characterizes consumers' heterogeneity. As in the one-dimensional case, stores aggregate spatially when...

This paper discusses the choice by the public authority of the most efficient programme of infrastructure investments. More specifically, it studies the optimal ranking of project implementation when these projects are partially self-financed by their own revenues such as tolled highways. In...

Physics and economics are two disciplines that share the common challenge of linking microscopic and macroscopic behaviors. However, while physics is based on collective dynamics, economics is based on individual choices. This conceptual difference is one of the main obstacles one has to...

We propose an analytical solution to a Schelling segregation model for a relatively broad range of utility functions. Using evolutionary game theory, we provide existence conditions for a potential function, which characterizes the global configuration of the city and is maximized in the...

Most scientific institutions acknowledge the importance of opening the so-called ‘ivory tower’ of academic research through popularization, industrial collaboration or teaching. However, little is known about the actual openness of scientific institutions and how their proclaimed priorities...

We show that cluster deposition, contrary to atomic or molecular deposition, makes it possible to experimentally approximate to several 2D theoretical models (percolation, cluster-cluster aggregation). Concerning percolation, molecular deposition seems to simulate bond correlated percolation...