IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/aejpol/v15y2023i1p196-232.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Economic Effects of Environmental Crises: Evidence from Flint, Michigan

Author

Listed:
  • Peter Christensen
  • David A. Keiser
  • Gabriel E. Lade

Abstract

In April 2014 Flint, Michigan switched its drinking water supply from the Detroit water system to the Flint River as a temporary means to save $5 million. Over 18 months it was revealed that the switch exposed residents to dangerous levels of lead, culminating in an emergency declaration in October 2015. This paper examines the impact of this crisis on the Flint housing market. The value of Flint's housing stock has fallen by $520 million to $559 million despite over $400 million in remediation spending. Home prices remain depressed through August 2019, 16 months after the water was declared safe for consumption.

Suggested Citation

  • Peter Christensen & David A. Keiser & Gabriel E. Lade, 2023. "Economic Effects of Environmental Crises: Evidence from Flint, Michigan," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 15(1), pages 196-232, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:aejpol:v:15:y:2023:i:1:p:196-232
    DOI: 10.1257/pol.20190391
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/pol.20190391
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://doi.org/10.3886/E168842V1
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/pol.20190391.appx
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/pol.20190391.ds
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1257/pol.20190391?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Edward L. Glaeser & Joseph Gyourko, 2005. "Urban Decline and Durable Housing," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 113(2), pages 345-375, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Bishop, Kelly C. & Kuminoff, Nicolai V. & Mathes, Sophie M. & Murphy, Alvin D., 2024. "The marginal cost of mortality risk reduction: Evidence from housing markets," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 139(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Hans R. A. Koster & Jos N. van Ommeren & Piet Rietveld, 2016. "Historic amenities, income and sorting of households," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 16(1), pages 203-236.
    2. Adam Jakubik & Victor Stolzenburg, 2021. "The ‘China Shock’ revisited: insights from value added trade flows," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 21(1), pages 67-95.
    3. Rutger-Jan Lange & Coen N. Teulings, 2021. "The option value of vacant land: Don't build when demand for housing is booming," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 21-022/IV, Tinbergen Institute.
    4. Ritashree Chakrabarti & Junfu Zhang, 2015. "Unaffordable housing and local employment growth: Evidence from California municipalities," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 52(6), pages 1134-1151, May.
    5. Edward L. Glaeser & Joseph Gyourko, 2006. "Housing Dynamics," NBER Working Papers 12787, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Mark D. Partridge & Dan S. Rickman & M. Rose Olfert & Ying Tan, 2015. "When Spatial Equilibrium Fails: Is Place-Based Policy Second Best?," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 49(8), pages 1303-1325, August.
    7. An-Ming Wang, 2016. "Agglomeration and simplified housing boom," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 53(5), pages 936-956, April.
    8. Wouter Vermeulen & J. van Ommeren, 2006. "Compensation of regional unemployment in housing markets," CPB Discussion Paper 57, CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis.
    9. Jordan Rappaport & Jeffrey D. Sachs, 2001. "The U.S. as a coastal nation," Research Working Paper RWP 01-11, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City.
    10. Miles M Finney, 2017. "Air Quality and the Development of Los Angeles," The Review of Regional Studies, Southern Regional Science Association, vol. 47(3), pages 271-288, Fall.
    11. Abadie, Alberto & Dermisi, Sofia, 2008. "Is terrorism eroding agglomeration economies in Central Business Districts? Lessons from the office real estate market in downtown Chicago," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 64(2), pages 451-463, September.
    12. Edward L. Glaeser, 2021. "Urban Resilience," NBER Working Papers 29261, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Venables, Anthony & Duranton, Gilles, 2018. "Place-Based Policies for Development," CEPR Discussion Papers 12889, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    14. Duranton, Gilles & Puga, Diego, 2014. "The Growth of Cities," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 5, pages 781-853, Elsevier.
    15. Leah Platt Boustan, 2010. "Was Postwar Suburbanization "White Flight"? Evidence from the Black Migration," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 125(1), pages 417-443.
    16. David H. Autor & David Dorn & Gordon H. Hanson & Jae Song, 2014. "Trade Adjustment: Worker-Level Evidence," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 129(4), pages 1799-1860.
    17. Gyourko, Joseph & Saiz, Albert, 2004. "Reinvestment in the housing stock: the role of construction costs and the supply side," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(2), pages 238-256, March.
    18. Christian A. L. Hilber, 2019. "Immobilienpreise und Immobilienzyklen und die Rolle von Angebotsbeschränkungen [The impact of local supply constraints on house prices and price dynamics]," Zeitschrift für Immobilienökonomie (German Journal of Real Estate Research), Springer;Gesellschaft für Immobilienwirtschaftliche Forschung e. V., vol. 5(1), pages 37-65, November.
    19. Davis, Morris A. & Palumbo, Michael G., 2008. "The price of residential land in large US cities," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(1), pages 352-384, January.
    20. Hangtian Xu, 2023. "Commercial‐to‐residential land‐use conversion and residential recentralization in large cities," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 56(1), pages 306-338, February.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • H12 - Public Economics - - Structure and Scope of Government - - - Crisis Management
    • I12 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health Behavior
    • Q25 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Renewable Resources and Conservation - - - Water
    • Q51 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Valuation of Environmental Effects
    • Q53 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Air Pollution; Water Pollution; Noise; Hazardous Waste; Solid Waste; Recycling
    • R31 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Real Estate Markets, Spatial Production Analysis, and Firm Location - - - Housing Supply and Markets

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:aea:aejpol:v:15:y:2023:i:1:p:196-232. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Michael P. Albert (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeaaaea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.