Differences in local fiscal conditions generate compensating differentials across local land and labor markets just as the authors have known amenities to do. Thus, the local fiscal climate affects the quality of life across metropolitan areas. The authors present new results showing that intercity fiscal differentials are nearly as important as amenity differentials in determining the quality of life across urban areas. The paper also investigates the sensitivity of the quality-of-life rankings with respect to assumptions about the nature of the marginal entrant. The authors estimate a random effects model to account for city-specific error components in the housing and wage regressions.

Differences in local fiscal conditions generate compensating differentials across local land and labor markets just as we have long known amenities to do. Thus the fiscal climate affects the quality of life across metropolitan areas. We present new results showing that intercity fiscal differentials are nearly as important as amenity differentials in determining the quality of life across urban areas. The paper also investigates the sensitivity of the quality-of-life rankings with respect to assumptions about the nature of the marginal entrant. We estimate a random effects model to account for city-specific error components in the housing and wage regressions. Those results indicate that the standard errors of previous OLS-based quality-of-life rankings have been biased downward substantially. More encompassing data on city traits as well as superior controls for worker and housing quality are needed to increase the precision of quality-of-life estimates.

A new test of the compensating wage differential model is proposed. The logic behind Roback's model, which shows how differences in nonproduced amenities may be reflected in intercity wage differentials, is extended to the case of differences in local fiscal conditions, represented by tax rates and publicly produced services. Results show that differences in local tax rates and services provisions do generate compensating wage differentials across cities. The effects of a particularly large set of taxes and effective services output measures are examined. Differences in local fiscal conditions are shown to play important roles in explaining the variance in intermetropolitan wages.

A new test of the compensating wage differential model is proposed. The logic behind Roback's model, which shows how differences in nonproduced amenities may be reflected in intercity wage differentials, is extended to the case of differences in local fiscal conditions, represented by tax rates and publicly produced services. Results show that differences in local tax rates and services provisions do generate compensating wage differentials across cities. The effects of a particularly large set of taxes and effective services output measures are examined. Differences in local fiscal conditions are shown to play important roles in explaining the variance in intermetropolitan wages.

People continue to live in many big American cities, because in those cities housing costs less than new construction. While cities may lose their productive edge, their houses remain and population falls only when housing depreciates. This paper presents a simple durable housing model of urban decline with several implications which document: (1) urban growth rates are leptokurtotic --cities grow more quickly than they decline, (2) city growth rates are highly persistent, especially amount declining cities,