Von Thunen’s Legendre Transform
The standard von Thunen construction for a monocentric city is shown to be a
Legendre transform of the kind which underlies the statistical mechanical
relationships of the standard maximum entropy transportation model. This
allows the integration of the von Thunen analysis with the doubly constrained
transportation model and shows the place of rents in the transportation model.
This extension of the model clarifies its interpretation as a complete
thermodynamic system for which the Maxwell relations may be derived.
Authors: Robin Morphet
Publication Date: 22nd July 2013
RPS ID:
Download Working Paper 193. File size 2.1MB, PDF format.