IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/juecon/v64y2008i3p601-614.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Fear of crime and housing prices: Household reactions to sex offender registries

Author

Listed:
  • Pope, Jaren C.

Abstract

Megan's Law requires public dissemination of information from sex offender registries. Opponents to this controversial law have questioned whether households misinterpret or even use this information. One concern was that the information might simply induce a "fear of crime." This study finds evidence for both use and misinterpretation of the publicly available information on sex offenders. Using a unique dataset that tracks sex offenders in Hillsborough County, Florida, the results indicate that after a sex offender moves into a neighborhood, nearby housing prices fall by 2.3% ($3500 on average). However, once a sex offender moves out of a neighborhood, housing prices appear to immediately rebound. Surprisingly, these price impacts do not appear to differ in areas near high risk offenders labeled as "predators."

Suggested Citation

  • Pope, Jaren C., 2008. "Fear of crime and housing prices: Household reactions to sex offender registries," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 64(3), pages 601-614, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:juecon:v:64:y:2008:i:3:p:601-614
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0094-1190(08)00061-2
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Sandra E. Black, 1999. "Do Better Schools Matter? Parental Valuation of Elementary Education," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 114(2), pages 577-599.
    2. Angrist, Joshua D. & Krueger, Alan B., 1999. "Empirical strategies in labor economics," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 23, pages 1277-1366, Elsevier.
    3. Mathios, Alan D, 2000. "The Impact of Mandatory Disclosure Laws on Product Choices: An Analysis of the Salad Dressing Market," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 43(2), pages 651-677, October.
    4. Beck, Victoria Simpson & Travis, Lawrence F., 2004. "Sex offender notification and fear of victimization," Journal of Criminal Justice, Elsevier, vol. 32(5), pages 455-463.
    5. Steve Gibbons, 2004. "The Costs of Urban Property Crime," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 114(499), pages 441-463, November.
    6. Kenneth Y. Chay & Michael Greenstone, 2005. "Does Air Quality Matter? Evidence from the Housing Market," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 113(2), pages 376-424, April.
    7. Ippolito, Pauline M. & Ippolito, Richard A., 1984. "Measuring the value of life saving from consumer reactions to new information," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 25(1-2), pages 53-81, November.
    8. Palmquist, Raymond B., 2006. "Property Value Models," Handbook of Environmental Economics, in: K. G. Mäler & J. R. Vincent (ed.), Handbook of Environmental Economics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 16, pages 763-819, Elsevier.
    9. Julie Berry Cullen & Steven D. Levitt, 1999. "Crime, Urban Flight, And The Consequences For Cities," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 81(2), pages 159-169, May.
    10. Lawrence F. Katz & Jeffrey R. Kling & Jeffrey B. Liebman, 2001. "Moving to Opportunity in Boston: Early Results of a Randomized Mobility Experiment," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 116(2), pages 607-654.
    11. Thaler, Richard, 1978. "A note on the value of crime control: Evidence from the property market," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 5(1), pages 137-145, January.
    12. Ginger Zhe Jin & Phillip Leslie, 2003. "The Effect of Information on Product Quality: Evidence from Restaurant Hygiene Grade Cards," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 118(2), pages 409-451.
    13. Kuziemko, Ilyana & Levitt, Steven D., 2004. "An empirical analysis of imprisoning drug offenders," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(9-10), pages 2043-2066, August.
    14. Halvorsen, Robert & Palmquist, Raymond, 1980. "The Interpretation of Dummy Variables in Semilogarithmic Equations," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 70(3), pages 474-475, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Congdon-Hohman, Joshua M., 2013. "The lasting effects of crime: The relationship of discovered methamphetamine laboratories and home values," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(1), pages 31-41.
    2. Pope, Devin G. & Pope, Jaren C., 2012. "Crime and property values: Evidence from the 1990s crime drop," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(1-2), pages 177-188.
    3. Baum-Snow, Nathaniel & Ferreira, Fernando, 2015. "Causal Inference in Urban and Regional Economics," Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, in: Gilles Duranton & J. V. Henderson & William C. Strange (ed.), Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, edition 1, volume 5, chapter 0, pages 3-68, Elsevier.
    4. Hua, Nan & Yang, Yang, 2017. "Systematic effects of crime on hotel operating performance," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 257-269.
    5. Leigh L. Linden & Jonah E. Rockoff, 2006. "There Goes the Neighborhood? Estimates of the Impact of Crime Risk on Property Values From Megan's Laws," NBER Working Papers 12253, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Pope, Jaren C., 2008. "Buyer information and the hedonic: The impact of a seller disclosure on the implicit price for airport noise," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(2), pages 498-516, March.
    7. Paolo Buonanno & Daniel Montolio & Josep Raya-Vílchez, 2013. "Housing prices and crime perception," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 45(1), pages 305-321, August.
    8. Guido W. Imbens & Jeffrey M. Wooldridge, 2009. "Recent Developments in the Econometrics of Program Evaluation," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 47(1), pages 5-86, March.
    9. Tang, Cheng Keat, 2021. "The Cost of Traffic: Evidence from the London Congestion Charge," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 121(C).
    10. Bruijn, L. Michelle & Ribas, Rafael P., 2022. "“No drugs in my back yard:” The ambivalent reception of cannabis retailers," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 199(C), pages 103-121.
    11. Yeh, Susan, 2015. "Revealing the rapist next door: Property impacts of a sex offender registry," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 42-60.
    12. Francesca Cornaglia & Naomi E. Feldman & Andrew Leigh, 2014. "Crime and Mental Well-Being," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 49(1), pages 110-140.
    13. Edward L. Glaeser & Scott Duke Kominers & Michael Luca & Nikhil Naik, 2018. "Big Data And Big Cities: The Promises And Limitations Of Improved Measures Of Urban Life," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 56(1), pages 114-137, January.
    14. Greenstone, Michael & Gayer, Ted, 2009. "Quasi-experimental and experimental approaches to environmental economics," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 57(1), pages 21-44, January.
    15. Steve Gibbons & Stephan Heblich & Esther Lho & Christopher Timmins, 2016. "Fear of Fracking? The Impact of the Shale Gas Exploration on House Prices in Britain," SERC Discussion Papers 0207, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    16. Grodecka, Anna & Hull, Isaiah, 2019. "The Impact of Local Taxes and Public Services on Property Values," Working Paper Series 374, Sveriges Riksbank (Central Bank of Sweden).
    17. Muñoz-Morales, Juan & Singh, Ruchi, 2023. "Do school shootings erode property values?," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 98(C).
    18. Brasington, David M. & Parent, Olivier, 2024. "Fire protection services and house prices: A regression discontinuity investigation," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 105(C).
    19. John William Hatfield & Katrina Kosec & Luke P. Rodgers, 2024. "Housing values and jurisdictional fragmentation," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 201(1), pages 83-122, October.
    20. Erasmo Giambona & Rafael P. Ribas, 2023. "Unveiling the Price of Obscenity: Evidence From Closing Prostitution Windows in Amsterdam," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 42(3), pages 677-705, June.

    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:eee:juecon:v:64:y:2008:i:3:p:601-614. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/622905 .

    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.