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Deprivation is a major risk to population health, in particular when experienced during childhood. Poor health in the early years accumulates and is expressed in adult health inequalities. Policy makers may aim to mitigate against the ill effects of deprivation by trying to increase social mobility and facilitating moves towards better earnings and living conditions or by protecting against the effects of downward moves and the experience of deprivation. This paper uses address change and property value data at the individual and family level to examine whether poor health outcomes occur more frequently among people who move between addresses and particularly those who move to properties with lower property values. We use the Northern Ireland Longitudinal Study, linking health and demographic data from 2001 and 2011 Censuses to house valuations for a representative 28% of the population aged 10–64 years (N = 342,681). Young persons (aged 10–15 years) living in a house valued at over £160,000 were half as likely to be reported as having mental ill health as those living in a house valued under £75,000 (OR = 0.49, CI: 0.31–0.78). There was no strong evidence that upward or downward mobility affected mental health or physical health for young people, but ill health of working aged persons showed a strong association with moving to houses of lower value. Results are discussed in terms of their implications for understanding the dynamics of social mobility and health and in terms of how various policies towards poverty may influence population health.

This paper reflects on how we can productively theorise the contemporary treatment of property, by a range of different economic agents, as a locus for the attempted creation of economic value. Its argument is that the theorisation offered by David Harvey (1982) in The limits to capital has a continued and arguably even heightened relevance in the present-day context, but that this theorisation can be embellished with insights from the sociology of finance, particularly in regard to the power of representation. This argument is developed with reference to two parallel empirical ‘stories’ from early twenty-first century capitalism: the economist Hernando de Soto’s influential thesis about the ‘mystery of capital’ and his related policy ideas; and the attempts of western-based financiers to extract profit from companies with significant real estate assets by separating those property assets from the operational side of the businesses in question.

The literature on home value diminution attributable to environmental degradation and its possible reversal typically ignores indirect effects upon neighborhood characteristics that can exacerbate the overall change in property values, resulting in underestimates of diminution and overestimates of recovery. Furthermore, to the extent that direct price effects and neighborhood transition effects respond differently to remediation efforts, the relatively new postremediation literature misses an important part of the recovery process. This study examines both direct and indirect effects and finds in the case of Houston Environmental Protection Agency Superfund sites that, while the direct value impacts of proximity to toxic waste sites was significantly reduced after remediation, the indirect effects associated with induced demographic changes were much slower to reverse, producing a housing market inertia that stifled full home value recovery.

This paper analyzes the legal issues surrounding defendants’ liability for property value diminution caused by stigma from environmental contamination. The courts, law review articles, and public policy analyses are in disagreement over how to handle stigma damages. This paper argues that a reasonable risk of contamination is not required for a nuisance claim if community effects, which were caused by the contamination, are present. The authors then turn to issues regarding the level of damages and propose a methodology for measuring compensation that is based on a guaranteed sales price. This methodology is applied to the RSR smelter in Dallas, Texas.

Despite ongoing debate regarding the effectiveness of tax abatements, Michigan's Industrial Facilities Tax (IFT) abatement program has been widely and extensively used to boost local economic development. In this article, we estimate the effects of industrial property tax abatements on industrial, residential, and commercial property value growth in the context of regional competition for a panel of 152 communities in the five counties surrounding Detroit from 1983 through 2002. We find that: (1) offering tax abatements yields statistically significant positive impacts on industrial property value growth; (2) the impacts are larger in high tax than in low tax communities; (3) there are positive spillover effects of industrial tax abatements on residential and commercial property value growth; (4) tax abatements offered in competitor communities do not appear to influence own industrial property value growth; and (5) changes in the own as well as competitor property tax rates are important determinants of industrial property value growth. However, the fiscal benefits of tax abatements are quite small as compared with the costs of offering abatements even when spillover benefits to residential and commercial properties are considered.

In this article, we examine the effects of changes in property tax rates and school spending on residential and business property value growth in southeast Michigan. We use panel data for 152 communities in the five counties surrounding Detroit between the years 1983 and 2002, a period during which state government mandated major changes to school finance. Using the mandated changes to identify causality, we find that: (1) residential property values are more responsive to school spending changes than property tax rate changes; (2) business property values are more responsive to tax rate changes than school spending changes; and (3) business property values are more sensitive to changes in tax rates as compared to residential property. We also examine tax competition effects on property value growth, showing that tax competition plays an important role in property value growth in the southeast Michigan region.

I. INTRODUCTION As state and local budgets begin to feel the impacts of the recent sharp decline in property values, the debate surrounding property taxes and tax-exempt properties is finding its way into the news and political debate. In municipalities, there are often a variety of properties and landscapes that are off the tax rolls including amenities such as parks, lakes, or green spaces, but also including tax-exempt entities such as universities, religious structures, or other nonprofit organizations. These amenities and entities may hold tax-exempt status because each arguably contributes to an important public purpose. However, the fiscal impact of these tax-exempt amenities and entities also may be minimal because each also makes an indirect contribution to the local property tax base, by raising the value of surrounding taxable properties. The fiscal implications naturally vary depending on the magnitude of the indirect impact. There is a large literature that has evolved to examine this empirical question. Much of this research has examined the fiscal implications of amenities such as parks, lakes, and green spaces. Previous research has shown that amenity effects are important in both the sale price and tax assessment values for residential properties and hedonic pricing models have been able to document these effects (Brown and Pollakowski 1977; Correll Lillydahl, and Singell 1978; Darling 1973; Espey and Owusu-Edusei 2001; Irwin 2002: Kaufman and Cloutier 2006; Lansford and Jones 1995; Weigher and Zerbst 1973). However, fewer studies have examined the impact of tax-exempt properties such as religious structures. In this article, we examine what effect, if any, religious structures have on the value of neighborhood properties. We build on a small literature (Carroll, Clauretie, and Jensen 1996; Do, Wilbur, and Short 1994) which has found ambiguous results; alternatively finding that religious structures are a "nuisance" that lower the value of surrounding properties or amenities that increase nearby property values; and even finding that the property value impact varied by denomination. We also make empirical contributions to the larger hedonic literature that examines the influence of neighborhood characteristics on property values. In particular, we identify a natural experiment where a religious structure was dropped into an older existing neighborhood for historical reasons, rather than included as a feature of a newly constructed neighborhood. In the latter case, land for religious structures could be carefully placed in either the higher or lower value areas of a new neighborhood. Furthermore, in contrast to most studies in the hedonic literature, we also gather a long data series of sale values for single-family homes from the period before and after the religious structure was built. Most hedonic studies only include a cross section or panel of assessed or sale values for the period after an amenity or neighborhood characteristic is in place. This data set allows us to estimate a pre-and post-treatment model to isolate the impact of the completed religious structure on neighborhood properly values. We show that standard estimation techniques may mischaracterize the contribution of religious structures or other amenities to home values. We conclude that more robust estimation techniques are required for research using hedonic pricing and event studies models to obtain more precise results. This article is organized as follows. In Section II we provide a review of the literature on hedonic pricing models with an emphasis on the influence of neighborhood amenities on property values. In Section III, We describe our data on sale values and housing characteristics. In Section IV, we describe the empirical estimates and in Section V, we present our conclusions. II. LITERATURE REVIEW The literature on hedonic pricing models for residential housing is large and well established. …

I. INTRODUCTION The removal of the Edwards Dam on the Kennebec River in 1999 set a national precedent for removing hydropower dams of marginal value. The removal represented the first time a functioning hydropower facility undergoing relicensing under the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC, which licenses hydropower facilities) was removed with the goal of restoring aquatic ecosystems. The Edwards Dam was also the first major dam to be removed in Maine. Since its removal, anadromous fish, including Atlantic salmon, have returned to the river above the dam site. Benthic aquatic insect populations--a key indicator of ecosystem health used in Maine to document compliance with water quality standards--appear to be growing dramatically. (1) Recreation on the river in the form of fly-fishing, canoeing, and kayaking has also grown. Upstream dams have faced the need to build fish passage in order to meet the terms of the Kennebec River Restoration agreement. However, little has been done in the way of postproject research or monitoring. The project has been deemed successful by most observers, but without formal evaluation, few objective measures of "success" are possible. This article presents the results of an ex post hedonic property value analysis of the area surrounding the former dam site and an upstream area with two hydropower dams. To the best of our knowledge, this is one of the first studies to undertake an ex post analysis of the economic impacts of a dam removal. (2) The removal of the Edwards Dam signaled--or partially triggered--a change in thinking about management of Maine rivers. Nearly, half a dozen smaller dams have recently been removed or are currently being evaluated for removal, including the Ft. Halifax Dam, in Waterville. Efforts to establish fish passage at upstream sites have increased as anadromous fish are able to pass downstream dams that have blocked access for most of a century. The Penobscot River Restoration agreement, which has been negotiated but not yet fully funded, would allow for the removal of two major dams north of Bangor and for fish passage to be built at others. On rivers around the country, similar things are happening. Two small hydropower dams on the Sandy River in Oregon are scheduled to be removed this year. (3) All this activity signals a critical need for credible estimates of the socioeconomic benefits of often-expensive restoration efforts (an estimated $25 million in the case of the Penobscot River project). (4) Additionally, since dam removal is controversial, it is important to fully understand its potential impacts. Impacts on recreation, property values, and community development are all of concern both to local communities and to property owners. Indeed, opposition to dam removal is often especially loud from property owners along impoundments, who may have purchased homes or invested in boats, docks, and other recreational facilities in expectation of the presence of an impoundment. Such losses to waterfront landowners, however, may not appear if potential buyers value homes near free-flowing rivers as much as properties near reservoirs. With river restoration efforts gaining national attention, studies that shed light on direct and indirect costs and benefits associated with dam removal should be valuable to the decision-making process. The need for better postproject monitoring and socioeconomic evaluation of aquatic restoration projects is widely recognized. The Draft Maine River Restoration User Guide (2004) (5) emphasizes the need for a "comprehensive, accurate method for evaluating the beneficial and adverse impacts of a dam removal." This report includes a section highlighting the need for socioeconomic valuation. Johnson and Graber (2002) also emphasize the need for incorporating the social sciences in decision making about dam removal. In 2002, the Department of Interior commissioned the Water, Science and Technology Board (WSTB) to undertake an assessment of water resources research funded by federal dollars. …

Standard practice in the residential mortgage underwriting industry is to estimate collateral values via independent appraisals conducted by third parties. This paper empirically examines the role of property value (i.e., appraisal) uncertainty as a determinant of default on residential mortgage loans. Based upon an analysis of 1,428 residential loans drawn from the portfolio of a national mortgage lender, we find evidence that semivariance in property value uncertainty is related to default risk. Specifically, subject properties that are valued above the sales price of recently sold “similar and proximate” properties show evidence of greater default risk. Interestingly, a variance (range) measure of property value uncertainty is not significantly related to default risk.

∗The article proposes a simple Bayesian technique for auditing property appraisals to determine whether state accuracy guidelines are met. The proposed technique addresses elicitation of appraisers’ prior beliefs, computation of reappraisal sample sizes and reporting of audit results. To facilitate communication of quantitative audit findings to nonstatistician stakeholders, the concept of variance appears nowhere in prior elicitation or reporting. In contrast to classical frequentist techniques, the Bayesian procedure easily integrates expert judgment and responds flexibly to the arrival of new information. In addition, the Bayesian procedure significantly reduces the number of reappraisals required to regulate appraisal systems when they are functioning well. The technique can be applied in other settings where government officials audit their own work and must convince overseers, especially the public, that accuracy requirements are satisfied. Public-sector property appraisers, whose responsibility is to compute annual property valuations for use by tax assessors and attest to their accuracy, are providers of technical expertise and what Walls and Quigley (2001) refer to as socio-technical services. Socio-technical services are those that require specialized communication skills for eliciting statistical information from nonstatisticians and for persuasively explaining quantitative issues to various stakeholders, in this case taxpayers, users of public services financed by property tax revenue and other constituencies in the local or regional political economy. The task of communicating algorithmic detail from the computation of property owners’ tax bills and attesting to the effectiveness of quality control measures clearly fits the socio-technical label. The focus of this article is the audit of public-sector property appraisals. Such audits require reappraisal of a relatively small number of properties using costly, in-depth appraisal methods and, thus, determination of an appropriate reappraisal sample size. The goal is to convince state officials and members of the

I. INTRODUCTION Studies have shown that community knowledge of the presence of a potentially hazardous toxic site results in significant value depreciation of nearby real estate. A majority of these studies involve ex post hedonic analysis of the real estate market with data from before and after community knowledge of the change in site conditions. (1) In the absence of any change in community perceptions, studying the welfare implications of cleaning up a toxic site would involve investigating the differential impact of the site on the properties across nearby locations. Unfortunately, very few studies have systematically pursued this line of research, despite its policy relevance, especially at the level of local governments. In the United States, the vast majority of Superfund sites await cleanup, while the local economies lag behind. Significant costs of cleaning up often come in the way of an early remedial action (Hamilton and Viscusi, 1999). (2) This article focuses on one such hazardous site and investigates its differential impact on the properties across nearby locations to estimate the benefits of a proposed Superfund cleanup. With a view to improve reliability, this article presents applications of two different models: the survey-based random utility model (RUM) and the market-based hedonic model. The welfare estimates are first compared between the two models and then with a number of market-based hedonic studies in the past. Implications of financing the cleanup, through increased property tax revenues are also investigated. The survey-based conjoint choice approach is particularly suited to modeling housing choice. In this approach, respondents are asked to select the best alternative from all the available options in the choice set. (3) Each choice option in a choice set may consist of attributes of a differentiated product, such as housing. The appeal of the conjoint choice approach lies in its ability to let the analyst design choice options that include plausible site remediation scenarios along with structural and locational features of the homes that are located near the toxic site that is proposed to undergo remediation. This article employs the conjoint choice approach to survey homeowners and models housing choice as a discrete choice process under the RUM framework. One aim of the present study is to empirically investigate how effective the conjoint choice approach is in revealing homeowners' willingness to pay (WTP) for different levels of site remediation. Like any choice-based study, the present study includes not only an elaborate and carefully made survey design, the choice experiment designed for the purpose--called orthogonal fractional factorial design in the statistical literature--has a special appeal, as it leads to efficient estimation of the utility parameters under the RUM framework. Unfortunately, econometric literature does not provide much guidance to judge the empirical validity of the results of the conjoint-based RUM estimation. To address the effectiveness of the survey-based approach, we present a hedonic price regression model to explore how welfare estimates obtained in the market-based hedonic model compare with those based on the survey-based RUM model. Comparing the two econometric methodologies is not only an important empirical exercise, it may also provide better understanding as to what needs to be done to bridge the gap between the welfare results from the survey-based and market-based approaches. To achieve the above stated objectives, our application is based on market transactions of single-family homes by a sample of homeowners and a subsequent survey of the same sample of homeowners in Lake County, Illinois. Contaminated sediments in Waukegan Harbor, a Superfund site on the western shore of Lake Michigan, have been a major concern of the residents of the City of Waukegan and other nearby cities in Lake County. …

This study tests the hypothesis that the acquisition of existing property by the public housing authority and its subsequent rehabilitation and occupancy by subsidized tenants significantly reduced the property values of surrounding single-family homes in Denver during the 1990s. This assessment examined pre- and post-occupancy sales, while controlling for the idiosyncratic neighborhood, local public service, and zoning characteristics of the areas in order to identify which sorts of neighborhoods, if any, experienced declining property values as a result of proximity to dispersed housing tenants. The analyses revealed that proximity to a subsidized housing site generally had an independent, positive effect on single-family home sales prices. The most notable exception to this pattern occurred in neighborhoods more than 20 percent of whose residents were black. Proximity to dispersed public housing sites in these neighborhoods resulted in slower growth in home sales prices in an other-wise booming housing market and suggest a threshold within “vulnerable” neighborhoods whereby any potential gains associated with rehabilitating existing units are offset by the increased concentration of poor residents. © 2001 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.

This paper examines the determinants of industrial properly value. We use the factor-analytic linear structural relations (LISREL) model to confront measurement problems associated with related work. A simultaneous test of the effects on property value of factors summarizing physical property, national market, local market, interest rate and location variables is performed. Findings indicate that the value of industrial buildings during 1987–1991 in the Dallas/Fort Worth area is primarily related to local market effects and to physical characteristics and location of the property.

Measuring flood control benefits from estimated property damage in prior floods omits losses in the form of depressed values of land put to less valuable uses because of annual flooding. Covariance analysis of real property values in three urban areas differently situated around Lake Cumberland, Kentucky shows a much larger rate of increase, over a 15-year period, for the area receiving flood protection. This suggests that the economic benefits from a flood protection facility include these additional property value increases as well as the prevented property damage.

Hedonic price models are widely employed to estimate implicit prices for bundled attributes. Residential property value studies dominate these applications. Using a representative cross-sectional property value data set, we employ Bayesian methods to translate a range of priors in covariate selection typical of hedonic property value studies into a range of posterior estimates. We also formulate priors regarding measurement error in individual covariates and compute the ranges of resulting posterior means. Finally, we empirically demonstrate that a greater and more systematic use of prior information drawn from one's own data and from other studies can break the collinearity deadlock in this data.

The impact of large‐scale hog barns on residential property values is at the forefront of local concerns about livestock development. In this article, I examine the impact of hog barns on house prices in an intensive production region of Manitoba, Canada. Timing of barn establishment and precise locations of houses and barns are used to gain a better understanding of the dynamic impacts of hog barns on house prices. I find that houses within 2 km of a hog barn sell for 5.7% less than similar houses located a little farther away from a barn. Quasi‐myopic specifications indicate that house prices fall by 6.2% up to three years prior to barn establishment, consistent with market anticipation of the future location of hog barns. Accounting for anticipation increases the post‐establishment discount to 8%, suggesting that ignoring anticipation of new barn establishment biases estimated post‐establishment impacts downwards.

Incomplete information in property value hedonic models can bias estimates of marginal willingness to pay (MWTP). Using brownfield remediation as an application, this article recovers hedonic values from a dynamic neighborhood choice framework that allows households to learn about brownfield contamination in a Bayesian fashion before choosing where to live. I find that ignoring learning yields nontrivial biases to the MWTP estimate. This has important implications for hedonic valuation if agents are imperfectly informed. Estimates are used to calculate information's value had it been withheld from the public and to assess heterogeneity in information's value along site and homebuyer demographics.

This study examines the effects of regulations targeting Airbnb and other short-termrental (STR) suppliers in the urban center of New Orleans. I show that although the new ordinances reduced participation in the STR market as intended, STR usage actually increased in the neighborhoods adjacent to areas the most affected by the regulations.I subsequently show that the new regulations depressed property values in the neighborhoods facing the tightest regulations by approximately 30%, implying that homeowners factor into their housing purchasing decisions the option to participate in the STR market.

We show that characterizing the effects of housing on portfolios requires distinguishing between the effects of home equity and mortgage debt. We isolate exogenous variation in home equity and mortgages by using differences across housing markets in house prices and housing supply elasticities as instruments. Increases in property value (holding home equity constant) reduce stockholdings, while increases in home equity wealth (holding property value constant) raise stockholdings. The stock share of liquid wealth would rise by 1 percentage point—6% of the mean stock share—if a household were to spend 10% less on its house, holding fixed wealth.

Tax incremental financing (TIF) is the most prevalent, complex, and controversial economic development tool used by local governments today. TIF proponents argue that TIF increases stagnant property values, but critics suggest that TIF is an unnecessary subsidy and distorts real estate markets. Although case studies offer evidence supporting both sides, the argument begs an important question: because some TIF districts are successful and others unsuccessful, is there a way to predict TIF distress and help prevent TIF failure? Practitioners and academics highlight the importance of pre‐implementation planning and strict monitoring of TIF performance. However, even with the most strident planning and monitoring, TIF districts still often fail. Utilizing a dataset of all 1,080 active TIF districts in Wisconsin, this paper adopts techniques popular in assessing local government fiscal health by focusing on indicators such as budgetary solvency and macroeconomic conditions in predicting TIF distress.

© 2019 by the Southern Economic Association Federally regulated or insured lenders in the United States are mandated to require flood insurance on properties that are located in areas at high risk of flooding. Despite the existence of this mandatory flood insurance requirement, take-up rates for flood insurance have been low, and the federal government's exposure to uninsured property losses from flooding remains substantial. Meanwhile, the value of capital at risk varies significantly with flood events and changing risk perceptions, which necessitates mechanisms that stabilize these dynamics. In this article we discuss how a scenario of complete insurance uptake, under various risk attitudes, affects the value of properties in the 100-year and 500-year flood zones. Our results indicate that an increase in flood insurance uptake may provide such a mechanism by lowering the value of capital at risk in the flood zone consistently, independent of homeowners' risk attitudes. We apply an empirical adaptive agent-based model to examine the capitalization of insurance costs, risk premiums, and their interaction in housing prices. Our approach combines widely-used empirical hedonic analysis with the computational economic framework. We highlight the usefulness of our method in capturing the marginal implicit price of homeowners' preferences that may change over time and separately assess the effect of various factors and policies on property values, illustrating the agent-based modeling as a valuable complement to traditional hedonic analysis.

This study examines the market impact of targeted property tax relief, which is critical for understanding who exactly benefits from a widely used local policy. Specifically, we investigate this in the context of two statewide ballot measures in Virginia that provided property tax relief or heightened expectations for future relief intended to aid disabled veterans and seniors, respectively. Using residential multiple listing service microdata from Virginia, results from a regression discontinuity analysis show that once the 2010 tax relief measures passed on Election Day, property values rose sharply in response to the sudden increase in demand for homeownership among the targeted groups. We find that senior preferred housing and properties within areas with higher proportions of seniors and veterans experienced the highest price appreciation, while areas with fewer veterans or seniors saw little impact. The findings suggest that this type of policy provides an immediate benefit to current homeowners, thereby offsetting benefits for subsequent homeowners within the targeted groups. This effect represents an unintended consequence of targeted property tax relief as a policy tool more generally, as immediate capitalization into home prices subsequently increases the cost of housing for many individuals the relief was intended to help.