TY  - JOUR
AU  - Albouy,David
TI  - Are Big Cities Bad Places to Live? Estimating Quality of Life across Metropolitan Areas
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 14472
PY  - 2008
Y2  - November 2008
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w14472
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w14472.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
David Albouy
Department of Economics
University of Michigan
611 Tappan Street
351C Lorch Hall
Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1220
Tel: 734/763-9619
E-Mail: albouy@umich.edu
AB  - The standard revealed-preference estimate of a city's quality of life is proportional to that city's cost-of-living relative to its wage-level. Adjusting estimates to account for federal taxes, non-housing costs, and non-labor income produces more plausible quality-of-life estimates than in the previous literature. Unlike previous estimates, adjusted quality-of-life measures successfully predict how housing costs rise with wage levels, are positively correlated with popular "livability" rankings and stated preferences, and do not decrease with city size. Mild seasons, sunshine, hills, and coastal proximity account for most inter-metropolitan quality-of-life differences. Amendments to quality-of-life measures for labor-market disequilibrium and household heterogeneity provide additional insights.
ER  -