On the Equivalence of Consumer Surplus and Von Thunian Rent

The surplus value arising from the use of transport facHiities is the most pertinent measure of social welfare for many spatial economic problems. Its equivalence to the fundamental variable of location theory, rent, is demonstrated. This is done in the most general context using TIicks' construction which involves no restrictive assumption on the value of money. The equality is also shown to hold for the special case of constant marginal utility of money, when surplus can be measured as the area under the demand curve for transport. This coincides with the conditions represented by von Thuinen's theory of land value.