AcademicsPublications

Quality of life in Chinese cities
Tie Shi, Wenzhang Zhu, Shihe Fu
China Economic Review
2592 20210820 (In press) Views:31659
The Rosen-Roback spatial equilibrium theory states that cross-city variations in wages and housing prices reflect urban residents’ willingness to pay for urban amenities or quality of life. This paper is the first to quantify and rank the quality of life in Chinese cities based on the Rosen- Roback model. Using the 2005 1% Population Intercensus Survey data, we estimate the wage and housing hedonic models. The coefficients of urban amenity variables in both hedonic models are considered the implicit prices of amenities and are used as the weights to compute the quality of life for each prefecture-level city in China. In general, provincial capital cities and cities with nice weather, good air quality, and accessible public transit have high quality of life. We also find that urban quality of life is positively associated with the subjective well-being of urban residents.
JEL-Codes: H44, J31, J61, R13, R23, R31
Keywords: Spatial equilibrium, hedonic model, urban amenity, quality of life, life satisfaction


Download full text Downloads:0