An aggregate approach to estimating quality of life in micropolitan areas

Amanda L. Weinstein (), Michael Hicks () and Emily Wornell ()
Additional contact information
Amanda L. Weinstein: University of Akron
Michael Hicks: Ball State University
Emily Wornell: Ball State University

The Annals of Regional Science, 2023, vol. 70, issue 2, No 6, 447-476

Abstract: Abstract Because of their reliance on large samples of micro-level housing and wage data, quality of life studies using Rosen–Roback models have focused almost exclusively on metropolitan areas, largely ignoring non-metropolitan areas. Although understandable given data constraints, this dominant focus on metropolitans has limited the data-driven approaches available to policymakers concerned with community and economic development in small cities, or micropolitan areas. To address this gap, we develop an aggregate approach to estimate both quality of life and quality of the business environment in micropolitan areas utilizing county-level housing and wage data that can be used when large samples of micro-level data are unavailable. Specifically, we use the county residuals from wage and housing regressions to replace the fixed effects typically estimated from the micro-level estimations in quality of life studies. We find compelling evidence that higher quality of life is not only associated with higher employment and population growth and lower poverty rates, but that it is more important than quality of the business environment in determining the success of micropolitan areas.

JEL-codes: H4 R1 R5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s00168-022-01155-5 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:anresc:v:70:y:2023:i:2:d:10.1007_s00168-022-01155-5

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://link.springer.com/journal/168

DOI: 10.1007/s00168-022-01155-5

Access Statistics for this article

The Annals of Regional Science is currently edited by Martin Andersson, E. Kim and Janet E. Kohlhase

More articles in The Annals of Regional Science from Springer, Western Regional Science Association Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().