Dual Earners, Urban Labor Markets and Housing Demand

Jan Rouwendal and Willemijn van der Straaten ()
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Willemijn van der Straaten: Wageningen University

No 03-084/3, Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers from Tinbergen Institute

Abstract: This paper replicates Costa and Kahn's analysis of locational choices of couples of highly educated persons for the Netherlands. We find increasing concentration of such power couples in the urbanized western part of the country. This trend occurs in spite of the absence of an urban wage premium for university-educated workers and the concentration of congestion there. We find that power couples locate more often in medium sized and larger cities than otherwise comparable households and that they are relatively often owner-occupiers and live in more expensive housing. Their commutes are relatively short when it is taken into account that it is more difficult for these households to find suitable combinations of employment and residence locations than it is for single earner households. A probable explanation for these findings is that power couples use their relatively large purchasing power to outbid other households from locations that are especially attractive t!o them, as is predicted by household location theory.

Keywords: dual earner households; power couples; urban wages; location choice; commuting distance; housing demand (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D13 R12 R21 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2003-10-14
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Chapter: Dual Earners, Urban Labour Markets and Housing Demand (2005)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:tin:wpaper:20030084

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