Valuation of Public Amenities and Differences in Quality of Life among Latin American Cities

María Laura Arrosa and Nestor Gandelman

No 979, Research Department working papers from CAF Development Bank Of Latinamerica

Abstract: We use a life satisfaction approach for the valuation of public goods and amenities in Latin American cities. We apply a homogenous database of seventeen cities gathered by the Development Bank of Latin America CAF. Using the estimated monetary value for several public goods and neighborhood amenities we construct a city level quality of life index. We find that access to electricity, access to running water and security are the three largest valued urban characteristics in terms of life satisfaction and housing satisfaction. The monetary equivalent valuations represent more than duplicating the household per capita income. Lacking access to them has a tremendous impact on quality of life. We also show that although richer households have more access, public good and amenities are a source for reductions in quality of life disparities.

Keywords: Ciudades; Investigación socioeconómica; Servicios públicos (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hap, nep-lam and nep-ure
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://scioteca.caf.com/handle/123456789/979

Related works:
Working Paper: Valuation of public amenities and differences in quality of life among Latin American cities (2016)
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:dbl:dblwop:979

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Research Department working papers from CAF Development Bank Of Latinamerica Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Pablo Rolando ().