Does cleanup of hazardous waste sites raise housing values? Evidence of spatially localized benefits

Gamper‐Rabindran, Shanti; Timmins, Christopher

doi:10.1016/j.jeem.2012.12.001

Cited by 131 publications

(60 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…Children in the six states living within 5 km of at least one Superfund site that was added to the NPL or achieved construction complete during the study period comprise the sample for 7 our analysis. Our focus on children located within 2 km relative to a control group 2 to 5 km from contaminated sites is consistent with past literature, which has found Superfund program impacts to be highly localized Gamper-Rabindran and Timmins 2013;Timmins 2017). We used construction complete rather than deletion as the milestone to define "cleaned up," as this is the point when we expect that cleanup efforts have addressed all immediate and long-term health threats, and the time between construction complete and deletion may be very long.…”

Section: Figure 1: Study Area and Time Periodsupporting

confidence: 87%

“…Over the last decade, a robust literature has developed that has used quasi-experimental statistical techniques to examine the effects of Superfund and other contaminated site cleanups on property values, showing that homes located near contaminated sites rise in value after cleanup (Zabel and Guignet 2012;Guignet 2013;Gamper-Rabindran and Timmins 2013;Guignet et al 2016;Haninger et al 2017;Timmins 2017). Studies examining the impacts of cleanups on cognitive performance and health outcomes are more limited.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Superfund cleanups and children’s lead exposure

Klemick

Mason

Sullivan

2020

Journal of Environmental Economics and Management

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This study evaluates the effect of EPA's Superfund cleanup program on children's lead exposure. We linked two decades of blood lead level (BLL) measurements from children in six states with data on Superfund sites and other lead risk factors. We used quasi-experimental methods to identify the causal effect of proximity to Superfund cleanups on rates of elevated BLL. We estimated a difference-in-difference model comparing the change in elevated BLL of children closer to versus farther from lead-contaminated sites before, during, and after cleanup.We also estimated a triple difference model including children near hazardous sites with minimal to no lead contamination as a comparison group. We used spatial fixed effects and matching to minimize potential bias from unobserved differences between the treatment and comparison groups. Results indicate that Superfund cleanups lowered the risk of elevated BLL for children living within 2 kilometers of lead-contaminated sites 8 to 18 percent.

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Section: Figure 1: Study Area and Time Periodsupporting

confidence: 87%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Superfund cleanups and children’s lead exposure

Klemick

Mason

Sullivan

2020

Journal of Environmental Economics and Management

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“…A similar point emerges in empirical work on environmental cleanup policies. Contrasting the work of Greenstone and Gallagher () and Gamper‐Rabindran and Timmins (), we see that the net benefits of the Environmental Protection Agency's Superfund program hinge on assumptions about household expectations for the future evolution of cleanups. Although Greenstone and Gallagher find a near‐zero capitalization effect of hazardous waste cleanups, Gamper‐Rabindran and Timmins find a positive effect.…”

Section: The Modelcontrasting

confidence: 73%

Evaluating the Social Optimality of Durable Public Good Provision Using the Housing Price Response to Public Investment

Coate

Ma²

2017

Int Economic Review

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Recent empirical work in public finance uses the housing price response to public investment to assess the efficiency of local durable public good provision. This article explores the theoretical justification for this technique. It points out that the logic justifying the technique for evaluating nondurable public good provision does not translate to the durable case. A model in which investment is determined by the interaction between a budget-maximizing bureaucrat and a community's residents is used to demonstrate that the technique can falsely predict underprovision, falsely predict overprovision, or perform without error. * Manuscript 4 COATE AND MA idea, Brueckner develops a model in which if housing prices rise following a small, permanent increase in local nondurable public good provision, then it can be inferred that the good is underprovided. Conversely, if housing prices fall, the good is overprovided (Brueckner, 1979(Brueckner, , 1982. This model has been used as the basis for a number of empirical studies of the optimality of local public good provision (see, e.g., Brueckner, 1982;Barrow and Rouse, 2004;Lang and Jian, 2004).Can housing prices be used to assess the social optimality of local durable public good provision? In an ambitious and creative paper, Cellini et al. (2010) employ the approach to detect whether local school districts are over-or underproviding public school facilities. Using a static version of Brueckner's model, they argue that if housing prices in a district rise following an investment in public school facilities, then such facilities are underprovided. Conversely, if housing prices fall, facilities are overprovided. To estimate what house prices would be in the counterfactual situation in which an observed investment is not undertaken, Cellini et al. exploit the fact that investments must be approved by residents in a referendum. Drawing on the regression discontinuity literature, they then compare housing prices in school districts in which referenda have just passed with those in which they have just failed. If prices are higher in the just passing districts, they argue that school facilities are underprovided. This is indeed what they find for California school districts.The intuitive appeal of this approach notwithstanding, there are important conceptual differences between an investment in a durable public good and a permanent increase in a nondurable public good. First, because of depreciation, the benefits from investment in the durable public good will not be permanent. Rather, they will diminish over time. Second, again because of depreciation, whether or not the investment in question is undertaken, future investments will be made by the community. Moreover, the nature of these investments will depend on the stock of the public good and hence on the fate of the investment in question. This creates a linkage between the current investment and the future investment path in the community. These differences raise the question of whether the logic that underlies the no...

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“…An early research article demonstrates, through nine case studies, that in Silicon Valley, the prices of industrial development sites were unaffected by existing sources of pollution (Scholz 1989). Besides segments, there can be significant differences by value category as well: the value impairment of residential housing worth less is greater, according to a current study (Gamper-Rabindran and Timmins 2013). One of the most dangerous kinds of point source pollution is lead contamination, because lead is undetectable without instruments, and thus using the ground and the water does not make the inhabitants feel at risk.…”

Section: Point Source Chemical Pollutionmentioning

confidence: 79%

Evaluation of stigmatized properties

Hajnal

2017

Organization, Technology and Management in Construction: An International Journal

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Stigmatized property is real estate burdened with an external negative effect. Individual cases are spread along a broad spectrum, along many dimensions that include the rational and the irrational, the acute and the chronic. Examples for the stigmatizing effect are a nearby airport, ground water contaminated by chemicals, presence of a high-voltage power line, and so on. Evaluation of these properties needs special methodology. Stigma can reduce the property's market value through a particular, multi-layered filter. The author systematically examines the professional literature's cases of evaluation of stigmatized properties. The research aims to organize and compare the cases in order to calculate the market value of stigmatized properties. Based on the analysis, six significant dimensions are identified. A focus group of 19 experts examined and individually evaluated the stigmatizing effects along these different dimensions. The author suggests that it is possible to estimate the stigma's effect and compare different cases to one another effectively. The results allow the international methodology of valuation to be processed.

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Does cleanup of hazardous waste sites raise housing values? Evidence of spatially localized benefits

Cited by 131 publications

References 22 publications

Superfund cleanups and children’s lead exposure

Superfund cleanups and children’s lead exposure

Evaluating the Social Optimality of Durable Public Good Provision Using the Housing Price Response to Public Investment

Evaluation of stigmatized properties

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