Empirical investigation of the effect of amenities and other factors on business location decisions

The impacts that risk perceptions have on those deciding whether to locate a business activity in an area likely to host a nuclear waste facility have become an important consideration in analyses that deal with choosing a site for nuclear waste facilities. This report presents empirical evidence on the importance of environmental amenities and disamenities in business location decisions gathered from surveys and interviews of owners and managers of manufacturing and producer service establishments in Colorado and Utah. Results show that amenities are a much more important consideration for producer service establishments than for manufacturing establishments. Policies of host communities to offset the loss of business establishments that could result from risk perceptions associated with nuclear waste facilities should therefore take into account how sensitive the business activities that are present or likely to locate in the area are to environmental amenities.