Revealed Preference Measures of Quality of Life in Australia's Urban and Regional Areas

Using data from the 2011 Census, we estimate quality of life across Australia. With mobile households, utility will be equalised across regions, so those regions with high real incomes must have a compensating low quality of life and vice versa. There are significant differences in quality of life across the 56 regions we examine. The top-ranked region in our study is the Eastern Suburbs of Sydney, while the Western Australian Outback has the lowest quality of life. The drivers of quality of life are explored, and climate appears to be important as well as certain human-made cultural amenities.