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作者

来源

REGIONAL SCIENCE AND URBAN ECONOMICS,Vol.68,P.148-159

语言

英文

关键字

Agglomeration economies; Health sector wage; Local labor supply; LABOR; CITIES; QUALITY; SKILLS; LIFE

作者单位

[Goodman, Allen C.] Wayne State Univ, 656 W Kirby St, Detroit, MI 48202 USA. [Smith, Brent C.] Virginia Commonwealth Univ, POB 844000, Richmond, VA 23284 USA. Goodman, AC (reprint author), Wayne State Univ, 656 W Kirby St, Detroit, MI 48202 USA. E-Mail: allen.goodman@wayne.edu; bcsmith@vcu.edu

摘要

Urban/regional economic analyses help explain several features of health service providers including output determination. Spatial agglomerations increase factor productivity, and therefore rents paid and wages earned. Larger agglomerations imply higher rents and wages, justifying the clustering of health professionals in large cities and medical centers. We show for 372 US Metropolitan Statistical Areas (2013) that health professionals' wages increase significantly with increased total employment, but fall as the proportion of the total labor force comprised by the sectors within the regional economy increases. Rents respond similarly, although with smaller elasticities. The wage-rental ratio (W/R) decreases with total regional employment, but increases with jobs per thousand in the health sector. Exogenous factors like heating and cooling degree days are consistent with slight positive increases in the W/R. Inclusion of W/R in a model that accounts for the covariance of wages and rents yields supply elasticities from + 3.47 to + 7.20 for all medical providers, and from + 0.22 to + 0.43 for registered nurses. These interregional elasticities (particularly for nurses) are consistent with estimates in other contexts.