Compensating differentials and evolution in the quality-of-life among US states

This paper provides estimates of evolution in quality-of-life rankings for U.S. states over the 1981-1990 period. Our findings indicate that the quality-of-life rankings are relatively stable across model specifications and over time for certain poorly ranked, densely-populated midwestern and eastern industrial states and also for other high quality-of-life rural western states. However, we find substantial deterioration in quality-of-life rankings in some states that experienced rapid population growth during the decade. Reduced spending on infrastructure, increased traffic congestion, and air pollution account for the bulk of the deterioration in quality-of-life in these states. As would be expected, improvement in those same factors is shown to result in marked ascension in quality-of-life ranks among other states. (C) 2002 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.