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The Regional Distribution of Population, Migration, and Climate

Quarterly Journal of Economics 1980 95(2), 293
Regional migration is analyzed utilizing a model that develops a system of urban areas. The areas differ in their endowment of a site-specific factor—climate is used as the example. The effects of differences in tax rates and technology are determined in a model where the price of housing is endogenous. Compensation for an inferior climate occurs through regional differences in income levels or the price of housing, dependent on the manner in which climate affects production or consumption. The market distribution of households is found to be suboptimal in cases where utility is derived directly from the consumption of climate. The locational choice of households is determined by a variety of factors. Recent contributions concentrating on climatic variations are Graves [1979], Graves and Linneman [1979], and Izraeli [1973]. A problem with the migration literature has been the lack of specifi-cation of a model that contains a system of urbanized areas. The model should determine the equilibrium size of urban areas. The migration flow results from the adjustment of the stock of population to changes

The Economic Value of Changing Mortality Probabilities: A Decision-Theoretic Approach

Quarterly Journal of Economics 1980 94(2), 373
Properties of individual willingness to pay for changes in mortality probabilities are examined using a decision-theoretic model. There is no unique value per life saved. The willingness to pay for a mortality reduction depends not only on the amount of reduction but also on the initial probability level and on whether the valuation is ex ante (e.g., decisions regarding health insurance, preventive medicine, or environmental health) or ex post (e.g., acute medical care). Several inequalities relating the imputed willingness to pay in various paradigm decision contexts are derived from the model with the addition of few additional behavioral assumptions.