Migration decisions and site-specific attributes of public policy: microeconomic evidence from the NLSY.

The authors examine the linkage between household location decisions in the United States and county-level public sector attributes. "This paper demonstrates a relationship between migration and public policy and suggests a role for migration in regional development.... We link migration to public policy by treating tax and expenditure variables as site attributes in a utility maximization model. We find that public sector attributes, through their effect on migration, are among the determinants of regional development.... An additional contribution of this paper is to suggest that if taxes and public expenditures influence migration, then a general theory of local or regional policy aimed at economic development must include explicit consideration of migration." Microdata from the 1984-1985 U.S. National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY) are analyzed.
(excerpt)