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We use surveys in which respondents evaluate local amenities in Norway to compute proxy variables for the quality of local public services as well as other local amenities relevant to location decisions. Average satisfaction reported by the respondents is computed for each amenity and each municipality, adjusted for sample variation in personal characteristics and included as explanatory variables in a cross-section study of house prices. We find that house prices are increasing in satisfaction with health care, cultural activities and public transportation, suggesting that the quality of local public services indeed affects the attractiveness of a residential site. When the analysis is repeated with input measures of service levels instead of satisfaction variables, we find no effects of local public services on house prices, indicating that traditional Tiebout studies based on input measures may have underestimated the importance of local public services for location decisions.

Regional labor market development is a result of the interaction between supply and demand mechanisms in spatial labor markets. From the demand side employment is affected by regional, economic, and industrial factors, while labor supply is mainly influenced by demographic factors and the rate of labor market participation. The simultaneity in these mechanisms has to be taken into account when analyzing the processes of regional labor markets. To this end. Statistics Norway has developed the regional REGARD model. This model illuminates the implications for regional employment and the labor force of a given macroeconomic scenario. Further, the model may be applied to analyze the effects on regional employment and population from changes in economic policy. In building the model, empirical analyses of regional producer behavior in manufacturing industries have been performed, and the relation between labor market development and regional migration has been investigated. Apart from providing a short description of the REGARD model, this article demonstrates the functioning of the model, and presents some results of an application.

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Abstract. European economies display large variations in unemployment rates across regions as well as between education groups. Insufficient labour mobility is widely believed to contribute to higher regional disparities and overall unemployment, but few studies have compared mobility responses of different education groups to regional shocks. This paper employs administrative registers covering the entire Norwegian population to compute annual time series from 1994 to 2004 of migration flows and regional labour market conditions by educational level for 90 travel-to-work areas. We find that regional disparities in unemployment rates are decreasing in education level, whereas the response of migration flows to regional unemployment shocks is increasing in education level. The results suggest that low regional mobility of low-educated workers may contribute to higher regional disparities and higher overall unemployment among the low educated. Terms of use: Documents in