TY  - JOUR
AU  - Albouy,David
TI  - What Are Cities Worth? Land Rents, Local Productivity, and the Capitalization of Amenity Values
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 14981
PY  - 2009
Y2  - May 2009
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w14981
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w14981.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  - Across cities, estimates of local land rents and firm productivity are inferable from wage and housing-cost data using knowledge of the housing cost function. Differences in amenity values are capitalized into the sum of local land values and federal-tax payments. A calibrated model is used to predict how amenities are capitalized into land rents, wages, and housing costs, and with U.S. data, to estimate land-rent, firm-productivity, and total amenity-value differences of cities. Private land values vary mainly from consumption amenities, while social land values, from productive ones. The most productive and valuable cities are coastal, sunny, mild, educated, and large.
ER  -