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The role of landscape amenities in regional development: a survey of migration, regional economic and hedonic pricing studies

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Author Info

  • Fabian Waltert

    () (Institute of Environmental Sciences, University of Zurich)

  • Felix Schlaepfer

    () (Socioeconomic Institute, University of Zurich)

Abstract

Quality of life factors continue to gain importance in residential location decisions as well as location decisions of firms. One such factor is an attractive local landscape. The aim of this paper is to provide a survey of the empirical literature on the role of landscape amenities in local economic change. Following common amenity definitions, we define landscape amenities as landscape features that are location-specific, latent non-market input goods that directly enter residents’ utility functions. Using this definition we identify thirty-nine relevant studies that use either migration or regional economic models or hedonic pricing techniques. One result from the analysis of migration and regional economic studies is that intra-country migrants were attracted by amenities about as frequently as by a low tax burden. Effects of amenities on employment and income are less well established. However, many of these studies used rather limited amenity variables. The results from hedonic studies show that a wide variety of local amenity attributes are partly capitalized in housing prices and that studies on a larger geographic scale are more likely to identify a significant a role of amenities. Newly available land cover datasets and spatial analysis tools have the potential to overcome important data limitations of many earlier studies. Future research may thus contribute to a better understanding of the role of landscape amenities in economic change and to a better coordination of regional and environmental policies.

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File URL: http://www.soi.uzh.ch/research/wp/2007/wp0710.pdf
File Function: First version, 2007
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Bibliographic Info

Paper provided by University of Zurich, Socioeconomic Institute in its series Working Papers with number 0710.

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Length: 34 pages
Date of creation: Aug 2007
Date of revision:
Publication status: published in Ecological Economics, 70(2), pp. 141-152, 2010
Handle: RePEc:soz:wpaper:0710

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Related research

Keywords: landscape amenities; migration; local development; hedonic models; environmental valuation; regional economic modeling; land use;

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References

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Cited by:
  1. Donja Darai & Dario Sacco & Armin Schmutzler, 2009. "Competition and Innovation: An Experimental Investigation," Working Papers 0608, University of Zurich, Socioeconomic Institute, revised Apr 2007.
  2. Falkinger, Josef, 2008. "Between Agora and Shopping Mall," IZA Discussion Papers 3524, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).
  3. Dennis Gaertner, 2007. "Monopolistic Screening under Learning By Doing," Working Papers 0718, University of Zurich, Socioeconomic Institute.
  4. Adrian Bruhin, 2008. "Stochastic Expected Utility and Prospect Theory in a Horse Race: A Finite Mixture Approach," Working Papers 0803, University of Zurich, Socioeconomic Institute.
  5. Johannes Schoder & Peter Zweifel, 2008. "Managed Care Konzepte und Lösungsansätze– Ein internationaler Vergleich aus schweizerischer Sicht," Working Papers 0801, University of Zurich, Socioeconomic Institute.
  6. Marco Salvi, 2008. "Spatial Estimation of the Impact of Airport Noise on Residential Housing Prices," Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics (SJES), Swiss Society of Economics and Statistics (SSES), vol. 144(IV), pages 577-606, December.
  7. Sandra Hanslin, 2008. "The effect of trade openness on optimal government size under endogenous firm entry," Working Papers 0802, University of Zurich, Socioeconomic Institute.
  8. Liljenstolpe, Carolina, 2011. "Valuation of environmental impacts of the Rural Development Program - A hedonic model with application of GIS," 2011 International Congress, August 30-September 2, 2011, Zurich, Switzerland 114383, European Association of Agricultural Economists.
  9. Dennis Gaertner, 2007. "Why Bayes Rules: A Note on Bayesian vs. Classical Inference in Regime Switching Models," Working Papers 0719, University of Zurich, Socioeconomic Institute.
  10. Dario Sacco & Armin Schmutzler, 2008. "All-Pay Auctions with Negative Prize Externalities: Theory and Experimental Evidence," Working Papers 0806, University of Zurich, Socioeconomic Institute.

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