Are Big Cities Bad Places to Live? Estimating Quality of Life across Metropolitan Areas

I would like to thank Soren Anderson, Patricia Beeson, Jeff Biddle, Dan Black, Glenn Blomquist, JS Butler, David Card, Paul Courant, Lucas Davis, Morris Davis, Gilles Duranton, Randall Eberts, Rob Gillezeau, Joseph Gyourko, Jim Hines, John Hoehn, Juanna Joensen, Matthew Kahn, Ryan Kellogg, Pat Kline, Jed Kolko, François Ortalo-Magné, Enrico Moretti, John Quigley, Jordan Rappaport, Stuart Rosenthal, Albert Saiz, David Savageau, Noah Smith, Gary Solon, Lowell Taylor, Casey Warman, Hendrik Wolff and the participants of seminars at Carnegie Mellon University, Columbia University, the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, Michigan State University, University of Kentucky, University of Michigan, the Stockholm School of Economics, University of Washington, University of Western Ontario, and Yale University and at the AREUEA Annual Meetings, Econometric Society North American Summer Meetings, NBER Public Economics Meetings, North American Regional Science Council Annual Meetings, and Society of Labor Economics Annual Meetings for their help, discussions, and advice. Olivier Deschenes and Wolfram Schlenker generously provided detailed weather data. Kevin A. Crosby, Walter Graf, and Bert Lue provided excellent research assistance. The National Science Foundation (SES-0922340) and the Center for Local, State, and Urban Policy (CLOSUP) provided generous financial assistance. Any mistakes are my own. Please e-mail any questions or comments to albouy@umich.edu. The views expressed herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research.

• November 10, 2008
• July 6, 2009