An Empirical Study of the Competing Destinations Model Using Japanese Interaction Data

The misspecification issue, that the estimated distance parameter in spatial-interaction models might be biased by the spatial structure under investigation, has remained unsettled. However, the competing destinations model recently developed by Fotheringham is the first ray of hope for a solution. In this paper, the empirical validity of Fotheringham's model is examined using data of migration and of university enrollment among Japanese prefectures. It becomes clear that the origin-specific estimates of the distance-decay parameter, calibrated from the production-constrained model, are, on the whole, less negatively biased. It is also confirmed that the dominance of the agglomeration effect for one set of data, and of the competition effect for other sets of data, are the sources of the misspecification issue. The empirical implications are discussed.