Working Paper

Moving to nice weather

Abstract: U.S. residents, both old and young, have been moving en masse to places with nice weather. Well known is the migration towards places with warmer winter weather, which is often attributed to the introduction of air conditioning. But people have also been moving to places with cooler and less-humid summer weather, which is the opposite of what would be expected from the introduction of air conditioning. Empirical evidence suggests that the main force driving weather-related moves is an increasing valuation of weather's contribution to quality of life. Cross-sectional population growth regressions are able to achieve a relatively good match with an a priori ranking of the weather's contribution to local quality of life.

Keywords: Population; Quality of life;

Bibliographic Information

Provider: Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City

Part of Series: Research Working Paper

Publication Date: 2003

Number: RWP 03-07