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Moving to High Quality of Life By Jordan Rappaport |
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Abstract The U.S. population has been migrating to places with
high perceived quality of life. A calibrated general-equilibrium model shows
that such migration follows from broad-based technological progress. Rising
wages increase demand for consumption amenities. Under a baseline
parameterization, a place with amenities for which individuals would pay 5
percent of their income grows 0.3 percent faster than an otherwise identical
place. The faster growth of high-amenity places is considerably strengthened
if they have low initial equilibrium population density underpinned by low
relative productivity. Productivity is shown to be a decreasingly important
determinant of local population. Among places with identical amenities but
varying productivity, equilibrium densities converge over time. Local
amenities are thus the sole determinant of asymptotic local population
density. Back to top RWP home |