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Valuing the Benefits of Superfund Site Remediation: Three Approaches to Measuring Localized Externalities

Author

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  • Shanti Gamper-Rabindran
  • Ralph Mastromonaco
  • Christopher Timmins

Abstract

We apply three complementary approaches designed to identify the localized effects of Superfund site remediation under the CERCLA, examining data at the level of (i) the census tract (paying attention to within tract heterogeneity), (ii) the census block, and (iii) individual house transaction. Our analysis of the within-tract housing value distribution detects statistically and economically significant appreciation in the lower tails resulting from hazardous waste cleanup; deletion of a site raises tract-level housing values by 18.2% at the 10th percentile, 15.4% at the median, and 11.4% at the 60th percentile. These tract results are confirmed by (i) house transaction data that show cheaper houses within each tract are more likely to be exposed to waste sites within one kilometer, explaining their greater appreciation from site cleanup, and (ii) high-resolution census block data that show greater appreciation among blocks lying closer to the cleaned sites. House-level repeat-sales data confirm results from our national level census analysis by showing that deletion raises housing values relative to proposal in specific markets, such as northern New Jersey, but they also uncover a great heterogeneity in the effects of remediation across markets, with no statistical effects from deletion relative to proposal detected in Los Angeles metro, southwestern Connecticut or Boston metro.

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  • Shanti Gamper-Rabindran & Ralph Mastromonaco & Christopher Timmins, 2011. "Valuing the Benefits of Superfund Site Remediation: Three Approaches to Measuring Localized Externalities," NBER Working Papers 16655, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:16655
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Shanti Gamper-Rabindran & Christopher Timmins, 2011. "Hazardous Waste Cleanup, Neighborhood Gentrification, and Environmental Justice: Evidence from Restricted Access Census Block Data," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(3), pages 620-624, May.
    2. Banzhaf, H. Spencer & Farooque, Omar, 2013. "Interjurisdictional housing prices and spatial amenities: Which measures of housing prices reflect local public goods?," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(4), pages 635-648.
    3. Kevin Haninger & Lala Ma & Christopher Timmins, 2017. "The Value of Brownfield Remediation," Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, University of Chicago Press, vol. 4(1), pages 197-241.
    4. Jacob LaRiviere & Matthew McMahon & Justin Roush, 2019. "Second-Best Prioritization of Environmental Cleanups," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 72(4), pages 1225-1249, April.
    5. Kelly D. Edmiston, 2012. "Nonprofit housing investment and local area home values," Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, vol. 97(Q I), pages 67-96.
    6. Nathanael D. Peach & Luke A. Petach, 2016. "Development and Quality of Life in Cities," Economic Development Quarterly, , vol. 30(1), pages 32-45, February.
    7. Jeremy G. Moulton & Nicholas J. Sanders & Scott A. Wentland, 2024. "Toxic Assets: How the Housing Market Responds to Environmental Information Shocks," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 100(1), pages 66-88.
    8. Mei, Yingdan & Qiu, Jixiang & Wu, Jialu & Meng, Lina, 2021. "Do residents care about urban dumps? Evidence from individual housing transaction data," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 109(C).
    9. Isabelle Anguelovski, 2015. "Healthy Food Stores, Greenlining and Food Gentrification: Contesting New Forms of Privilege, Displacement and Locally Unwanted Land Uses in Racially Mixed Neighborhoods," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 39(6), pages 1209-1230, November.
    10. Chuanhao Tian & Wenjun Ji & Sijin Chen & Jinqun Wu, 2020. "The Time and Spatial Effects of A “City-County Merger” on Housing Prices—Evidence from Fuyang," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(4), pages 1-26, February.
    11. Hamil Pearsall & Isabelle Anguelovski, 2016. "Contesting and Resisting Environmental Gentrification: Responses to New Paradoxes and Challenges for Urban Environmental Justice," Sociological Research Online, , vol. 21(3), pages 121-127, August.
    12. Gamper-Rabindran, Shanti & Timmins, Christopher, 2013. "Does cleanup of hazardous waste sites raise housing values? Evidence of spatially localized benefits," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 65(3), pages 345-360.
    13. Kim, GwanSeon & Schieffer, Jack & Mark, Tyler, 2016. "Do Superfund Sites Affect Local Property Values? Evidence from a Spatial Hedonic Approach," 2016 Annual Meeting, July 31-August 2, Boston, Massachusetts 235835, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    14. Mastromonaco, Ralph, 2015. "Do environmental right-to-know laws affect markets? Capitalization of information in the toxic release inventory," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 71(C), pages 54-70.
    15. Evans, Keith Shannon, 2011. "Problems of uncertainty, learning, and welfare measurement in resource and environmental economics," ISU General Staff Papers 201101010800001072, Iowa State University, Department of Economics.
    16. Mastromonaco, Ralph & Maniloff, Peter, 2018. "An examination of geographic heterogeneity in price effects of superfund site remediation," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 171(C), pages 23-28.

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • Q5 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics
    • 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

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