Household Life Cycle Location Choices and the Dynamics of Metropolitan Communities

机构：卡内基梅隆大学NSF计划：ECONOMIC主要研究员：Epple，Dennis标题：家庭生命周期位置选择和大都市社区的动态。理解家庭的区位选择和大都市结构的动态是经济研究和城市政策的重要问题。这项拟议的研究将建立家庭生命周期区位选择的动态模型。在大都市地区，家庭更换地点的激励措施在不同的生命周期中有所不同。有学龄儿童的家庭会被质量好的公立学校所吸引，而那些没有孩子的家庭可能不会这么想。儿童离开家庭，以及与之相关的住房需求减少，加强了搬迁的诱因。动态平衡模型有可能提高对社区特征和住房市场的理解。对家庭的生命周期动态和社区人口的相关动态进行建模也将提高我们对社区内作出的地方公共政策集体选择的理解。该模型包含了以下五个家庭特征，家庭流动性的生命周期模型必须包括这些特征：收入、家庭规模、搬家成本、年龄和住房保有权。对该模型的实证检验需要开发一个与一般均衡模型相对应的计算模型。实证分析将基于关于社区的横截面和小组数据，以研究社区人口构成的横截面差异以及社区人口构成随时间的变化。还将利用关于大都市内部人口移徙的普查数据，调查处于不同生命周期阶段、不同收入和家庭规模的家庭的移徙情况。这项研究对经济科学做出了几项重大贡献。本研究发展并估计了一个社区选择的一般均衡模型，以研究地方公共政策的决定。一般均衡框架对于研究改变社区均衡构成和由此产生的住房价格的政策问题特别重要。这项研究的主要贡献之一是，在一个有多个社区的动态框架中，通过多数原则对集体选择机制进行了详细分析。这项研究将提供第一个社区选择的估计动态模型，从而走在城市经济学理论、计算和估计相结合的前沿。这项研究有几个更广泛的影响。这项研究研究了当地的公共政策，并调查了在美国人口老龄化的背景下，住房市场的不完善和搬家成本对小学和中学教育机会的影响。这种人口结构变化，加上家庭搬迁决定，有可能极大地改变社区的构成、社区的支出模式以及获得经济机会的机会。这项研究的结果为理解这种变化的后果和评估公共政策提供了基础。区分不同种类家庭的能力及其对空间均衡的贡献有望在理解和量化与公共政策有关的得失分配方面取得重大进展。研究结果将被广泛传播，以促进更广泛地获取结果。博士生将参与研究，从而为他们的培训做出贡献。

Institution: Carnegie Mellon UniversityNSF Program: ECONOMICSPrincipal Investigator: Epple, DennisTitle: Household Life Cycle Location Choices and the Dynamics of Metropolitan Communities. ABSTRACT Understanding location choices of households and the dynamics of metropolitan structure are important issues in economic research as well as urban policy. The proposed research will develop a dynamic model of household life cycle location choices. Incentives for households to change locations in a metropolitan area vary over the life cycle. Households with school-aged children will be attracted to locations with good quality public schools, while those without children may not be so inclined. Departure of children from the household, and the associated decrease in housing need reinforces the incentives for relocation. The dynamic equilibrium model has the potential to improve understanding both of community characteristics and of housing markets. Modeling the life cycle dynamics of households and the associated dynamics of community populations will also improve our understanding of collective choices of local public policies made within communities. The model incorporates the following five household characteristics that that a life cycle model of household mobility must capture: income, family size, moving cost, age, and housing tenure. Empirical testing of the model entails developing a computational counterpart to the general equilibrium model. The empirical analysis will be based on cross-sectional and panel data on communities to study cross-sectional differences in the demographic composition of communities and changes in community demographic composition over time. Census data on intra-metropolitan population migration will also be used to investigate migration of households of varying stages of the life-cycle and varying incomes and family sizes. This research makes several significant contributions to economic science. This research develops and estimates a general equilibrium model of community choices to study determination of local public policies. The general equilibrium framework is particularly important for the study of policy issues that change the equilibrium composition of communities and the resulting housing prices. Among the key contributions of the research is providing a detailed analysis of collective choice mechanisms via majority rule in a dynamic framework with multiple communities. This research will provide the first estimated dynamic model of community choice and is thus on the frontier of integrating theory, computation, and estimation in urban economics. This research has several broader impacts. The research studies local public policies and investigates the effects of housing market imperfections and moving costs on access to primary and secondary education in the context of an aging US population. This demographic change coupled with household relocation decisions has the potential to alter significantly the composition of communities, the expenditure patterns of communities, and access to economic opportunities. The result of this research provides a foundation for understanding the consequences of such changes and evaluating public policies. The ability to distinguish among heterogeneous households and their contribution to the spatial equilibrium promises to provide a significant advance in understanding and quantifying the distribution of gains and losses associated with public policies. The research findings will be widely disseminated to promote broad access to theresults. Ph.D. students will participate in the research, thus contributing to their training.