Amenities and Manufacturing Location Patterns: Planning Grant

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This project develops a research proposal investigating how local amenities affect manufacturers' location patterns. This preliminary work can be generalized into three tasks: examination of prior literature, index specification, and econometric modeling. The examination of prior literature focuses on multi-market hedonic analysis and location theory. This information will provide a critique of a previously used amenity measure, and will aid in expanding and reformulating that measure. Here also, potential data sources will be identified which may be used to achieve that objective. The third task involves identifying econometric models that will be suitable for the proposed research being planned. After these tasks, a competitive grant proposal will be submitted in August 2001. Given that amenities do influence location, this research is useful to public and private planners interested in economic development and forecasting. More detailed knowledge about the link between the two promotes economic efficiency. The importance of this topic is further evidenced by the increased attention paid to amenities and other nontraditional location factors when localities compete to attract and retain industry. Yet very little empirical research has been done to date which directly analyzes the influence that amenities have on manufacturers' location decisions.