Community Choice and Local Public Services: A Discrete Choice Approach

This paper uses a discrete choice approach to estimate the impact of local fiscal and other variables on individual community choices. It employs a combination of a unique micro data set composed of ninety percent of all homeowners in six school districts in Camden County, New Jersey and information on local community characteristics including local crime rates, commercial activity and distance from a metropolitan area. The empirical model implies that all these variables as well as the local per pupil spending on public education and community entry prices' play a major part in explaining the location of individual households. Estimates of elasticities of the probabilities of a representative individual choosing a particular community with respect to the various variables are calculated and discussed.