spatial search migration and regional unemployment the dominant explanation of spatial unemployment in the literature assumes that workers must live in an area in order to be able to access job offers this gives rise to compensating variations in local wages and unemployment however for many occupations search is clearly conducted over longer distances from a home base in the model presented in this paper migration and unemployment are analysed both when the optimal search field is local as in the traditional model and when search is conducted over longer distances i compare equilibria in these two regimes and discuss the implications for regional policy

commutes neighborhood effects and earnings an analysis of racial discrimination and compensating differentials abstract recent tester studies indicate that minority workers face restricted residential and employment opportunities because of racial discrimination in housing and labor markets these restrictions may create a spatial mismatch between where urban minorities reside and where metropolitan area jobs are located resulting in reduced proximity of minority workers to jobs prior studies of racial discrimination and urban spatial mismatch however have paid little attention to the possibility that differences in employment commutes may be partially offset by compensating variations in neighborhood amenities quality adjusted house prices and earnings such effects could help to mitigate the impact of discrimination on minority workers using a unique subset of the 1985 and 1989 american housing surveys we estimate a fixed effects commute time model that controls for quality adjusted house prices neighborhood amenities and earnings results indicate that although blacks have longer commutes than comparably skilled white and asian workers roughly one third of the estimated difference is offset by neighborhood amenity and housing price differentials however even after controlling for neighborhood fixed effects and earnings educated black workers have significantly longer commutes than comparably skilled asian and white workers additional findings indicate that regardless of race household mobility is an important mechanism through which the market attains a spatial equilibrium providing further support for arguments that restricted proximity to residential opportunities and jobs reduces the economic welfare of minority households

the role of amenities in a general equilibrium model of regional migration and growth economists have been steadily refining the theoretical framework developed by sherwin rosen 25 to determine the implicit prices of amenities rosen s model was a partial equilibrium model which focused on the behavior of households as consumers jennifer roback 23 24 substantially expanded rosen s model by explicitly including the behavior of firms in a more general framework which she used to measure the value of amenities blomquist berger and hoehn 3 extended the roback model by incorporating intraregional as well as interregional differences in amenities however their basic theoretical framework is the same as that proposed by roback other works in this literature which have been based on roback s model are primarily empirical in nature for example see beeson and eberts 2 in a recent paper voith 31 modifies roback s model by incorporating local as well as regional amenities and by recognizing that the effect of an amenity on wages and rents may differ depending upon the nature 6f the community i e whether the community is residential commercial or mixed use voith also presents empirical results with mixed success

recreation demand and residential location abstract we use the properties of competitive location equilibrium to study the demand for recreation and the choice of primary residence location location specific recreation and employment lead to pooling equilibria in which consumers reside according to their preference for recreation in general the stronger the taste for recreation the greater the attraction of living close to the recreation site and the lower the demand for other goods including housing we explore the effects of trip frequency trip length and recreation cost on the spatial distribution of consumers we also consider the effect of the wage rate on recreation and location demands

migration regional equilibrium and the estimation of compensating differentials in this study we have developed an improved model of net migration that encompasses both equilibrium and disequilibrium components instrumental variables fixed effects estimates of the model with time series data for 51 areas in the united states over the period 1971 1988 support the importance of both equilibrium and disequilibrium factors in migration excerpt

least cost 100 renewable electricity scenarios in the australian national electricity market least cost options are presented for supplying the australian national electricity market nem with 100 renewable electricity using wind photovoltaics concentrating solar thermal cst with storage hydroelectricity and biofuelled gas turbines we use a genetic algorithm and an existing simulation tool to identify the lowest cost investment and operating scenarios of renewable technologies and locations for nem regional hourly demand and observed weather in 2010 using projected technology costs for 2030 these scenarios maintain the nem reliability standard limit hydroelectricity generation to available rainfall and limit bioenergy consumption the lowest cost scenarios are dominated by wind power with smaller contributions from photovoltaics and dispatchable generation cst hydro and gas turbines the annual cost of a simplied transmission network to balance supply and demand across nem regions is a small proportion of the annual cost of the generating system annual costs are compared with a scenario where fossil fuelled power stations in the nem today are replaced with modern fossil substitutes at projected 2030 costs and a carbon price is paid on all emissions at moderate carbon prices which appear required to address climate change 100 renewable electricity would be cheaper on an annual basis than the replacement scenario

the unequal geographic burden of federal taxation in the united states workers in cities offering above average wages cities with high productivity low quality of life or inefficient housing sectors pay 27 percent more in federal taxes than otherwise identical workers in cities offering below average wages according to simulation results taxes lower long run employment levels in high wage areas by 13 percent and land and housing prices by 21 and 5 percent causing locational inefficiencies costing 0 23 percent of income or 28 billion in 2008 employment is shifted from north to south and from urban to rural areas tax deductions index taxes partially to local cost of living improving locational efficiency

public conservation land and employment growth in the northern forest region we quantify the effect that public conservation lands have on employment growth in the northern forest region of the united states a model of simultaneous employment and net migration growth is estimated with data on non metropolitan counties from 1990 to 1997 exogenous variables include the 1990 share of the land base in public conservation uses we find that net migration rates were higher in counties with more conservation lands but the effects are relatively small no significant effect on employment growth is detected as well variables measuring changes in public timber harvests have no effect on employment growth

driving to opportunity local rents wages commuting costs and sub metropolitan quality of life we examine variation in local rents wage levels commuting costs household characteristics and amenities within metropolitan areas for 2071 areas covering the united states by density and central city status we demonstrate the sensibility of estimating wage levels by workplace not residence and recover decentralized rent gradients that fall with commuting costs we construct and map a willingness to pay index which indicates the quality of life typical households receive from local amenities when households are similar mobile and informed this index varies considerably within metros and is typically high in areas that are dense suburban sunny mild safe entertaining and have elevated school funding

quality of life firm productivity and the value of amenities across canadian cities we estimate quality of life and productivity differences across canada s metropolitan areas in a hedonic general equilibrium framework these are based on the estimated willingness to pay of heterogeneous households and firms to locate in various cities which differ in their wage levels housing costs and land values using 2006 canadian census data our metropolitan quality of life estimates are somewhat consistent with popular rankings yet find canadians care more about climate and culture quality of life is highest in victoria for anglophones montreal for francophones and vancouver for allophones and lowest in more remote cities toronto is canada s most productive city vancouver is the overall most valuable city qualite de vie productivite des entreprises et la valeur des avantages dans les diverses villes canadiennes on evalue les differences entre la qualite de vie et la productivite des entreprises entre les zones metropolitaines au canada a l aide d un cadre d analyse d equilibre general hedonique ces metriques sont basees sur l estimation de la volonte de payer de menages et d entreprises heterogenes pour se localiser dans diverses villes qui different tant pour ce qui est des niveaux de salaires des couts de l habitation et des prix des terrains a l aide des donnees du recensement canadien de 2006 on construit des evaluations de la qualite de vie des diverses zones metropolitaines qui s arriment convenablement aux ordonnancements en vogue mais on decouvre que les canadiens portent une attention particuliere au climat et a la culture la qualite de vie est la plus elevee a victoria pour les anglophones a montreal pour les francophones et a vancouver pour les allophones et la plus faible pour les villes eloignees des grands centres toronto est la ville la plus productive vancouver est generalement la plus appreciee

a portfolio risk analysis on electricity supply planning abstract conventional electricity planning selects from a range of alternative technologies based on the least cost method without assessing cost related risks the current approach to determining energy generation portfolios creates a preference for fossil fuel consequently this preference results in increased exposure to recent fluctuations in fossil fuel prices particularly for countries heavily depend on imported energy this paper applies portfolio theory in conventional electricity planning with taiwan as a case study the model objective is to minimize the risk weighted present value of total generation cost both the present value of generating cost and risk variance of the generating cost are considered risk of generating cost is introduced for volatile fuel prices and uncertainty of technological change and capital cost reduction the impact of risk levels on the portfolio of power generation technologies is also examined to provide some valuable policy suggestions study results indicate that replacing fossil fuel with renewable energy helps reduce generating cost risk however due to limited renewable development potential in taiwan there is an upper bound of 15 on the maximum share of renewable energy in the generating portfolio in the meantime reevaluating the current nuclear energy policy for reduced exposure to fossil fuel price fluctuations is worthwhile

an analysis of australia s large scale renewable energy target restoring market confidence in 2001 australia introduced legislation requiring investment in new renewable electricity generating capacity the legislation was significantly expanded in 2009 to give effect to a 20 renewable energy target ret importantly the policy was introduced with bipartisan support and is consistent with global policy trends in this article we examine the history of the policy and establish that the stop start nature of renewable policy development has resulted in investors withholding new capital until greater certainty is provided we utilise the methodology from simshauser and nelson 2012 to examine whether capital market efficiency losses would occur under certain policy scenarios the results show that electricity costs would increase by between 51 million and 119 million if the large scale ret is abandoned even after accounting for avoided renewable costs our conclusions are clear we find that policymakers should be guided by a high level public policy principle in relation to large scale renewable energy policy constant review is not reform

impacts of renewables and socioeconomic factors on electric vehicle demands panel data studies across 14 countries abstract electric vehicle demands have increased rapidly since 2010 and depend on renewables and socioeconomic factors using panel data from fourteen countries between 2010 and 2015 we study impacts of seven factors in a multiple linear regression model the factors include percentage of renewable energies in electricity generation number of charging stations education level population density gasoline price gdp per capita and urbanization the first four factors have apparent and positive impacts on the demands and the last two factors don t the gasoline price affects the demands for bevs battery electric vehicles more than that for phevs plug in hybrid electric vehicles one percent increase in renewables would lead to approximately 2 6 increase in ev demands based on the results policy implications are discussed

use value property tax assessment effects on land development in this paper i provide a theoretical analysis of the effects of use value property assessment on land development decisions and subsequent land use first use valuation assessment is incorporated in an optimal timing model then the effects of that assessment method on the timing of development are investigated through comparative static analysis implications of the irreversible nature of development are considered the paper concludes with policy considerations

public infrastructure and wages public capital s role as a productive input and household amenity production function studies typically conclude that public capital plays little role in enhancing productivity however others have found that infrastructure and employment growth are positively related these apparently conflicting results can be reconciled if public capital serves as a household amenity that increases labor supply without dramatically increasing productivity this study examines the impact of public capital on wages in order to assess whether productivity or amenity effects dominate for the economy as a whole the results suggest that highway s strongest role is as a household amenity however for the manufacturing sector the productivity effect of highways appears to dominate

urban population and amenities the neoclassical model of location we develop a neoclassical general equilibrium model to explain cross metro variation in population and density we provide new methods to estimate traded and non traded productivities and elasticities of housing and land supply using density and land area data from wage and housing cost indices the model explains half of u s density and population variation and finds that quality of life determines location choices more than trade productivity productivity and factor substitution in housing matter most but are weak in nicer areas relaxing land use regulations would increase population in the west raising both quality of life and productivity experienced by residents

mexican enclaves and the price of culture abstract studies of mexican immigrant earnings consistently find a negative relationship between concentration of mexicans and earnings smith and newman economic inquiry 15 51 66 1977 and yuengert journal of human resources 30 194 204 1995 among others attribute this enclave effect as the compensating differential for culture however the existence of a land market suggests that the price of culture may also depend on culture s effect on the price of land adopting a model developed by roback economic inquiry 26 23 41 1988 i first show that the price of mexican culture is a function of culture s effect on both earnings and rents second using data for california and texas from the 1990 census i estimate the price for mexican culture consistent with the model culture lowers earnings and increases rents in enclaves with larger concentration of mexicans in fact land s share of the price of culture is as much as 42 therefore studies that attribute the lower earnings in enclaves as the compensating differential for enclave externalities underestimate the value of culture this paper also tests several predictions implied by the theoretical model satisfying the general equilibrium conditions the earnings of other workers are higher in enclaves furthermore except for mexican americans the assumption that culture is not an amenity to other workers is supported by the data

efficient power generating portfolio in brazil conciliating cost emissions and risk the main purpose of this paper is to assess efficiency of the brazilian electricity generation mix proposed in the 2020 decennial plan for energy expansion dpee 2020 it evaluates estimated costs risks and co2 emissions following the mean variance portfolio theory the efficiency frontier is estimated for three co2 prices scenarios no co2 prices low co2 price and high co2 price the planned portfolio in brazil presented in the dpee 2020 is relatively close to the efficient frontier however there is still room for risk mitigation by diversifying the energy portfolio as there is currently no co2 price in brazil the tendency is that diversification increases fossil fuel share in the energy mix but the introduction of a co2 price can be an option to promote renewables this type of large general market framework can contribute to reduce market uncertainties by reducing the level of government s discretionary activism

is there a compensating wage differential for high crime levels first evidence from europe abstract this paper investigates whether high regional crime levels lead to a compensating wage differential paid by firms in the respective region using data from german social security records official police statistics and official statistics for 2003 2006 i consider both violent and non violent crimes and use three way error components estimators to control for individual and regional heterogeneity the findings suggest that wages are practically unrelated to changes in crime rates this result is robust over a wide range of subgroups there is however some evidence that crime rates influence land prices

options uncertainty and sunk costs an empirical analysis of land use change abstract in a real option model of land conversion incorporating return uncertainty and sunk costs optimal conversion thresholds are significantly higher than those from expected net present value models not accounting for these factors empirical tests of conversion from agriculture to forest suggest that landowners value the option to convert when making conversion decisions higher uncertainty in returns to all potential uses and lower correlation between shocks to agricultural and forest returns decreases the likelihood of conversion estimates indicate a significant impact on conversion decisions with approximations of option values ranging from 7 to 81 of the expected value of the land asset

wage differentials across labor markets and workers does cost of living matter wage differentials studies rarely account for interarea differences in cost of living owing both to data limitations and theoretical ambiguity this study develops a price index for 185 metropolitan areas comprising about 70 of the u s labor force current population survey data for 1985 95 and data on sitespecific amenities are used to estimate earnings differentials based on nominal wages wages fully adjusted for measured cost of living and a simple approximation of real wages with partial adjustment for pricelevel differences dispersion in approximate real wages across 185 labor markets and differentials by region and city size are substantially lower than dispersion in nominal or full adjustment wages estimates of racial and ethnic differentials display moderate sensitivity to choice of a wage measure whereas other standard differentials do not both nominal wages and wages fully adjusted for cost of living may provide misleading estimates of real wage differentials absent data on interarea prices and amenities researchers should include detailed controls for region and city size in nominal wage equations jel j31 r23

research and deployment priorities for renewable technologies quantifying the importance of various renewable technologies for low cost high renewable electricity systems in an australian case study abstract this study aims to identify research priorities to enable low cost high renewable power systems an evolutionary program optimises the mix of technologies in 100 renewable energy portfolios re in the australian national electricity market various technologies are reduced in availability to determine their relative importance for achieving low costs the single most important factor is found to be the integration of large quantities of wind therefore wind integration is identified as a research priority in contrast photovoltaics are found to saturate the system at less than 10 of total energy in the absence of storage or demand management installation of further photovoltaics does not contribute significant further value this indicates that policies to promote utility scale photovoltaics should be considered in partnership with complementary measures such as demand side participation and storage biofuelled gas turbines are found to be important a complete absence of bioenergy increases costs by au 20 30 mwh and even having only 0 1 twh per year of bioenergy available reduces average costs by au 3 4 mwh limits on the non synchronous penetration nsp are found to be relatively expensive suggesting a significant research priority around finding alternative approaches to providing synchronous services such as inertia geothermal and concentrating solar thermal technologies do not appear essential as long as sufficient wind and peaking bioenergy is available

wages rents and the quality of life this study focuses on the role of wages and rents in allocating workers to locations with various quantities of amenities the theory demonstrates that if the amenity is also productive then the sign of the wage gradient is unclear while the rent gradient is positive the theory is extended to include the housing market and nontraded goods these extensions require little modification of the conclusion the empirical work on wages shows that the regional wage differences can be explained largely by these local attributes with the use of site price data implicit prices are estimated and quality of life rankings for the cities are computed

property tax policy and land use change in this study we analyze the effect of property taxes on changes between agricultural forestry conservation reserve program and developed land uses in louisiana we estimate a random parameters logit model of land use conversion from the national resources inventory plot data our results indicate that land use changes are inelastic with respect to property taxes simulation shows that current use valuation policy while slowing down development of rural lands also affects changes between rural land uses

new estimates of quality of life in urban areas implicit markets capture compensation for intraurban and interregional differe nces in amenities and yield differences in housing prices and wages these pecuniary differences become preference based weights in a qual ity of life index hedonic equations are estimated using microdata fr om the 1980 census and assembled county based amenity data on climati c environmental and urban conditions ranking of 253 urban counties reveals substantial variation within as well as among the 185 urba n areas the quality of life differences across counties within one s msa is almost one half of the difference between the top and bottom ranked counties in the nation copyright 1988 by american economic association

panel estimates of the canadian rural urban women s wage gap this article analyzes the female rural urban wage gap in canada using longitudinal data from the survey of labour and income dynamics 1993 96 we estimate a two step wage equation accounting for unobserved heterogeneity and sample selection the results indicate that a statistically and economically significant rural urban wage gap remains after controlling for observed and unobserved characteristics further the results suggest this rural urban wage difference is not simply induced by immobility between rural and urban markets rather consistent with the effect of thinner rural labor markets the evidence indicates that rural urban differences in the impact of a number of explanatory variables are significant

urban and built up land area changes in the united states an empirical investigation of determinants conversion of commodity producing rural lands to urban and other built up uses received considerable attention in the professional literature and in the popular press in the early 1980s u s department of agriculture and u s council on environmental quality 1981 fischel 1982 raup 1980 brown et al 1982 although some have concluded that the forces encouraging the conversion of land will remain and become stronger e g barron and dickinson 1975 few empirical studies at regional or national levels have examined determinants of area changes for urban and built up uses or supported long term area projections of such uses possible determinants include the inter regional distribution of population growth and patterns of land use within regions particularly patterns of human settlement

do inter city differences in intra city wage differentials have any interesting implications abstract recent research has related characteristics of cities to differences in the distribution of wages across workers with different skill levels we demonstrate that these differences in wage differentials arise naturally as a compensating variation in rosen s theoretical model of inter city wages for example if the income elasticity of demand for housing services is less than unity cities with higher house prices will have smaller money wage differentials between low and high skill workers this result has no implications for differences in either absolute or relative real productivity or welfare of unskilled workers similarly changes in the amenity of an urban area may result in changes in relative wages of skilled and unskilled workers with no implications for real productivity or welfare differentials empirical tests in which housing cost differentials are added as a determinant of inter city differences in an intra urban wage differential model provide empirical confirmation of the theoretical expectations it appears that intra urban money wage differentials differences in the quality of life and variation in the cost of living in each city are jointly determined variables just as rosen s model of inter city wage differentials predicts

mobility and the return to education testing a roy model with multiple markets self selected migration presents one potential explanation for why observed returns to a college education in local labor markets vary widely even though u s workers are highly mobile to assess the impact of self selection on estimated returns this paper first develops a roy model of mobility and earnings where workers choose in which of the 50 states plus the district of columbia to live and work available estimation methods are either infeasible for a selection model with so many alternatives or place potentially severe restrictions on earnings and the selection process this paper develops an alternative econometric methodology that combines lee s 1983 parametric maximum order statistic approach to reduce the dimensionality of the error terms with more recent work on semiparametric estimation of selection models e g ahn and powell 1993 the resulting semiparametric correction is easy to implement and can be adapted to a variety of other polychotomous choice problems the empirical work which uses 1990 u s census data confirms the role of comparative advantage in mobility decisions the results suggest that self selection of higher educated individuals to states with higher returns to education generally leads to upward biases in ols estimates of the returns to education in state specific labor markets while the estimated returns to a college education are significantly biased correcting for the bias does not narrow the range of returns across states consistent with the finding that the corrected return to a college education differs across the u s the relative state to state migration flows of college versus high school educated individuals respond strongly to differences in the return to education and amenities across states

amenities and regional differences in returns to worker characteristics average wages in regions in the united states vary considerably in trying to explain these differences in the average wage across regions a number of studies have found that differences in the returns to characteristics of workers such as years of schooling are as important as differences in the skill composition of the labor force 4 6 10 141 these differences in returns are generally interpreted as reflecting regional differences in demand for worker characteristics coupled with barriers to factor mobility this interpretation is based on the argument that the presence of at least one perfectly mobile factor with perfect information will cause spatial convergence in characteristic prices as that particular factor exploits any spatial price differential 4 p 2161 this paper suggests an alternative to this demand based explanation for regional differences in the structure of wages one based on regional differences in the supply of worker characteristics this explanation does not rely on impediments to the movement of workers or firms and is consistent with an equilibrium view of wages in which regional wage differentials are viewed as compensation for local amenities the theoretical model presented in the following section assumes capital and labor are perfectly mobile with perfect information implying that in equilibrium the utility of workers with similar characteristics is the same in all locations this convergence of utility however does not necessarily imply convergence of characteristic prices equilibrium differences in the returns to a specific worker characteristic can exist if worker characteristics affect an individual s valuation of an area s amenities relative to the individual s demand for land

residential amenities firm location and economic development amenities are regarded as increasingly important to the location decisions of certain types of firm yet they are often ignored in economic development research because of the assumption that they attract only workers and that this workforce in turn attracts firms this paper argues for a reduced form model of the impact of amenities on corporate location when testing such a model at the intra metropolitan scale it will be necessary to measure amenities not only at the potential worksite but also where employees are likely to live this paper tests such a firm location model using a sample of municipalities in northern new jersey results support the hypothesis that firms evaluate certain amenities with respect to the likely residential locations of their employees

the determinants and welfare implications of us workers diverging location choices by skill 1980 2000 abstract from 1980 to 2000 the rise in the us college high school graduate wage gap coincided with increased geographic sorting as college graduates concentrated in high wage high rent cities this paper estimates a structural spatial equilibrium model to determine causes and welfare consequences of this increased skill sorting while local labor demand changes fundamentally caused the increased skill sorting it was further fueled by endogenous increases in amenities within higher skill cities changes in cities wages rents and endogenous amenities increased inequality between high school and college graduates by more than suggested by the increase in the college wage gap alone jel d31 i26 j24 j31 j61 r23

wages rents and amenities differences among workers and regions what explains persistent regional earnings differences this paper argues that regional differences in amenities can account for the wage differences in contrast cost of living variations do not account for wage differences but actually exacerbate them this conclusion results from a model in which variations in rents and wages are equalizing differences for amenity differences empirical results are consistent with the model

health and amenity effects of global warming a somewhat warmer climate would probably reduce mortality in the united states and provide americans with valuable benefits regressions of death rates in washington dc and in some 89 urban counties scattered across the nation on climate and demographic variables demonstrate that warmer temperatures reduce deaths the results imply that a 2 5deg celsius warming would lower deaths in the united states by about 40 000 per year although the data on illness are poor the numbers indicate that warming might reduce medical costs by about 20 billion annually utilizing willingness to pay as a measure of preference this paper regresses wage rates for a few narrowly defined occupations in metropolitan areas on measures of temperature and size of city and finds that people prefer warm climates workers today would be willing to give up between 30 billion and 100 billion annually in wages for a 2 5deg c increase in temperatures

the link between crime risk and property prices in england and wales evidence from street level data this paper uses street level data on property sales and crime rates for england and wales to investigate compensating differentials for crime risk my identification strategy relies on the use of non parametric regional time trends on various levels of spatial aggregation as well as various fixed effects for streets and wider areas to control for unobserved amenities and regional economic conditions the data comes from transaction data collected by the land registry and recently published crime maps for the whole of the uk my estimates which are robust to a range of sensible specification changes suggest that each case of anti social behaviour per ten population in the same street leads to an approximately 0 6 0 8 drop in property prices while a corresponding increase in violent crime decreases prices by roughly 0 6 1 6 and a corresponding increase in non violent crime by about 0 2 0 4 the majority of estimates are at the upper end of these intervals estimates for robbery burglary and vehicle c

estimating workers marginal willingness to pay for job attributes using duration data this paper develops and applies a method for estimating workers marginal willingess to pay for job attributes when workers job choices are characterized by imperfect information and labor market search as an application this paper analyzes the job durations of white males using data from the national longitudinal survey youth cohort and the dictionary of occupational titles estimates of workers willingness to pay derived from the job duration model are compared with those derived from an hedonic wage model

landscape amenities and local development a review of migration regional economic and hedonic pricing studies abstract with rapid urban expansion and loss of open space attractive local landscapes will continue to gain importance in location decisions and on political agendas the present study reviews the evidence on the local economic role of landscape amenities from two major strands of empirical research migration and regional economic models and hedonic pricing models following common amenity definitions we identify 71 relevant peer reviewed studies and systematically assess the reported effects of the landscape amenity variables the migration and regional economic studies suggest that migrants are attracted by amenities nearly as often as by low taxes reported effects of amenities on income and employment are less consistent the hedonic studies suggest that nature reserves and land cover diversity have mostly open space and forest often and agricultural land rarely positive effects on housing prices studies at larger geographic scales and studies involving urban areas were more likely to identify significant amenity effects some limitations of the evidence may be overcome with better datasets and modeling approaches however in line with other recent work the limitations also highlight the need for complementary information from the analysis of political preferences for land use management

intra metropolitan shifts in labor demand and the adjustment of local markets abstract i offer new evidence on the adjustment of local labor markets to geographic shifts in labor demand within us metropolitan areas using a unique data set in which metropolitan subregions are geographically matched across the 1970 1980 and 1980 1990 decades the evidence uncovered paints the following picture workers especially those with less education make incomplete adjustments within metropolitan areas in response to intra metropolitan demand shifts although blacks may not make especially limited adjustments they have disproportionately suffered deleterious effects from job movements because the demand shifts have tended to be away from their places of residence

the role of amenities and quality of life in rural economic growth a structural model of regional economic growth is estimated using data for 2243 rural u s counties five indices designed to capture specific amenity and quality of life characteristics are constructed using fifty four separate indicators results suggest that amenity characteristics can be organized into consistent and meaningful empirical measures that move beyond ad hoc descriptions of amenities in addition to insights into the influence of local characteristics ranging from tax burdens to income distribution on regional economic growth results suggest that predictable relationships between amenities quality of life and local economic performance exist

migration fixed costs and location specific amenities a hazard analysis for a panel of males this article presents econometric estimates of the adult working age male hazard function of interstate migration fitted to data obtained from migration decisions of adult males over a twenty year period the results show a strong negative effect of the real wage difference between origin and destination and of fixed costs associated with a move on the hazard rate of interstate migration farmers and other self employed males and males who have school age children have unusually low hazard rates of interstate migration although a high crime rate is shown to increase the real wage it also has a separate positive effect on the hazard of migration

recreation demand models with taste differences over people we estimate random parameter logit models of anglers choice of fishing site the models generalize logit by allowing coefficients to vary randomly over anglers rather than being fixed the models do not exhibit the restrictive independence from irrelevant alternatives property of logit and can represent any substitution pattern estimation explicitly accounts for the fact that the variation in coefficients over anglers induces correlation in unobserved utility over trips by the same angler willingness to pay for improved fish stock and the value to anglers of specific sites are calculated from the models and compared with the estimates obtained from a standard logit model

using renewables to hedge against future electricity industry uncertainties an australian case study abstract a generation portfolio modelling was employed to assess the expected costs cost risk and emissions of different generation portfolios in the australian national electricity market nem under highly uncertain gas prices carbon pricing policy and electricity demand outcomes were modelled for 396 possible generation portfolios each with 10 000 simulations of possible fuel and carbon prices and electricity demands in 2030 the lowest expected cost generation portfolio includes 60 renewable energy increasing the renewable proportion to 75 slightly increased expected cost by 0 2 mwh but significantly decreased the standard deviation of cost representing the cost risk increasing the renewable proportion from the present 15 to 75 by 2030 is found to decrease expected wholesale electricity costs by 17 mwh fossil fuel intensive portfolios have substantial cost risk associated with high uncertainty in future gas and carbon prices renewables can effectively mitigate cost risk associated with gas and carbon price uncertainty this is found to be robust to a wide range of carbon pricing assumptions this modelling suggests that policy mechanisms to promote an increase in renewable generation towards a level of 75 by 2030 would minimise costs to consumers and mitigate the risk of extreme electricity prices due to uncertain gas and carbon prices

a monte carlo based decision support tool for assessing generation portfolios in future carbon constrained electricity industries abstract this paper presents a novel decision support tool for assessing future generation portfolios in an increasingly uncertain electricity industry the tool combines optimal generation mix concepts with monte carlo simulation and portfolio analysis techniques to determine expected overall industry costs associated cost uncertainty and expected co 2 emissions for different generation portfolio mixes the tool can incorporate complex and correlated probability distributions for estimated future fossil fuel costs carbon prices plant investment costs and demand including price elasticity impacts the intent of this tool is to facilitate risk weighted generation investment and associated policy decision making given uncertainties facing the electricity industry applications of this tool are demonstrated through a case study of an electricity industry with coal ccgt and ocgt facing future uncertainties results highlight some significant generation investment challenges including the impacts of uncertain and correlated carbon and fossil fuel prices the role of future demand changes in response to electricity prices and the impact of construction cost uncertainties on capital intensive generation the tool can incorporate virtually any type of input probability distribution and support sophisticated risk assessments of different portfolios including downside economic risks it can also assess portfolios against multi criterion objectives such as greenhouse emissions as well as overall industry costs

self selection and internal migration in the united states abstract within the conceptual framework of the roy model this paper provides an empirical analysis of internal migration flows using data from the national longitudinal survey of youth the theoretical approach highlights regional differences in the returns to skills regions that pay higher returns to skills attract more skilled workers than regions that pay lower returns our empirical results suggest that interstate differences in the returns to skills are a major determinant of both the size and skill composition of internal migration flows persons whose skills are most mismatched with the reward structure offered by their current state of residence are the persons most likely to leave that state and these persons tend to relocate in states which offer higher rewards for their particular skills

unintended impacts of public investments on private decisions the depletion of forested wetlands by affecting relative economic returns infrastructure investments can induce major changes in private land use the authors find that 30 percent of forested wetland depletion in the mississippi valley has resulted from private decisions induced by federal flood control projects despite explicit federal policy to preserve wetlands the model aggregates individual land use decisions using a parametric distribution of unobserved land quality dynamic simulations are used to quantify the impacts on wetlands of federal projects and other factors copyright 1990 by american economic association