An Analysis of Competitive Oscillations between Japanese Twin Cities

In this paper keenly-competing Japanese twin cities are examined and the competitive oscillations occurring between them is analyzed as a typical example of medium-term competitive processes. From an analysis of market shares for annual retail sales of women's and children's clothes it was found that there are certain oscillations between the twin cities. As these oscillations are derived from the strong competition between closely-located twin cities, they are called competitive oscillations. In order to analyze the generation of the competitive oscillations, an attempt to reproduce a strongly competitive condition by constructing a dynamic model of two-centre competition was made. As the twin cities share a large part of their populations, they are under strong competitive conditions in which major retail development at one city produces an absolute loss to the other city. Therefore, the twin cities seesaw through the introduction of innovations such as large shops in order to gain a more advantageous competitive position, resulting in competitive oscillations between them. This finding implies that the introduction of innovation to centres is a competitive device in the medium-term and is consistent with the view that the diffusion of innovation is closely related to the competitive process.