TY  - JOUR
AU  - Boustan,Leah Platt
TI  - Escape from the City? The Role of Race, Income, and Local Public Goods in Post-War Suburbanization
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 13311
PY  - 2007
Y2  - August 2007
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w13311
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w13311.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Leah Platt Boustan
Department of Economics
8283 Bunche Hall
UCLA
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1477
Tel: 310/794-4263
Fax: 310/825-9528
E-Mail: lboustan@econ.ucla.edu
AB  - The attraction of wealthy suburbs rests, in part, on their political and fiscal autonomy from the low-income electorate and poor tax base in many central cities. I estimate the willingness to pay to live in an affluent suburb by measuring changes in housing prices on opposite sides of city-suburban borders as the income gap between the city and suburb widens (or narrows) over time. I find that a $10,000 increase in town-level median income is associated with a seven percent increase in housing values. The demand for high-income municipalities is driven by school quality and lower property tax rates.
ER  -