IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ebl/ecbull/eb-18-00997.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Spatial Aggregation Bias in Implicit Prices of Environmental Amenities

Author

Listed:
  • Nathaly M Rivera

    (University of Alaska Anchorage)

Abstract

Applications of hedonic price functions aimed at eliciting implicit prices of environmental goods generally rely on spatially aggregated measures to proxy for micro-level perceptions of these amenities. This paper provides empirical evidence of the bias that arises in the elicitation of these implicit prices due to spatial aggregation. Cross-sectional data on more than 12,000 rental homes is used to derive implicit prices of air quality, using households' perceptions of air pollution aggregated at different spatial levels. Results show that higher aggregation levels add a downward bias to marginal willingness-to-pay measures for air quality improvements, increasing point estimates of the price of air quality. These findings suggest caution when interpreting implicit prices elicited from spatially aggregated measures of environmental amenities.

Suggested Citation

  • Nathaly M Rivera, 2019. "Spatial Aggregation Bias in Implicit Prices of Environmental Amenities," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 39(2), pages 1184-1194.
    • Handle: RePEc:ebl:ecbull:eb-18-00997
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.accessecon.com/Pubs/EB/2019/Volume39/EB-19-V39-I2-P113.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kuminoff, Nicolai V. & Parmeter, Christopher F. & Pope, Jaren C., 2010. "Which hedonic models can we trust to recover the marginal willingness to pay for environmental amenities?," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 60(3), pages 145-160, November.
    2. Luc Anselin, 2003. "Spatial Externalities, Spatial Multipliers, And Spatial Econometrics," International Regional Science Review, , vol. 26(2), pages 153-166, April.
    3. Briant, A. & Combes, P.-P. & Lafourcade, M., 2010. "Dots to boxes: Do the size and shape of spatial units jeopardize economic geography estimations?," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(3), pages 287-302, May.
    4. Won Kim, Chong & Phipps, Tim T. & Anselin, Luc, 2003. "Measuring the benefits of air quality improvement: a spatial hedonic approach," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 45(1), pages 24-39, January.
    5. Hanushek, Eric A & Rivkin, Steven G & Taylor, Lori L, 1996. "Aggregation and the Estimated Effects of School Resources," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 78(4), pages 611-627, November.
    6. Shultz, Steven D & King, David A, 2001. "The Use of Census Data for Hedonic Price Estimates of Open-Space Amenities and Land Use," The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, Springer, vol. 22(2-3), pages 239-252, March-May.
    7. Giuseppe Arbia & Francesca Petrarca, 2011. "Effects of MAUP on spatial econometric models," Letters in Spatial and Resource Sciences, Springer, vol. 4(3), pages 173-185, October.
    8. Jeffrey M Wooldridge, 2010. "Econometric Analysis of Cross Section and Panel Data," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 2, volume 1, number 0262232588, December.
    9. Holly J. Michael & Kevin J. Boyle & Roy Bouchard, 2000. "Does the Measurement of Environmental Quality Affect Implicit Prices Estimated from Hedonic Models?," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 76(2), pages 283-298.
    10. Lindo, Jason M., 2015. "Aggregation and the estimated effects of economic conditions on health," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 83-96.
    11. Nelson, Jon P., 1978. "Residential choice, hedonic prices, and the demand for urban air quality," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 5(3), pages 357-369, July.
    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. Matthew Gnagey & Therese Grijalva, 2018. "The impact of trails on property values: a spatial analysis," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 60(1), pages 73-97, January.
    2. Seo, Kihwan & Golub, Aaron & Kuby, Michael, 2014. "Combined impacts of highways and light rail transit on residential property values: a spatial hedonic price model for Phoenix, Arizona," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 53-62.
    3. Yoo, James & Simonit, Silvio & Connors, John P. & Maliszewski, Paul J. & Kinzig, Ann P. & Perrings, Charles, 2013. "The value of agricultural water rights in agricultural properties in the path of development," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(C), pages 57-68.
    4. Irwin, Nicholas & Wolf, David, 2022. "Time is money: Water quality's impact on home liquidity and property values," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 199(C).
    5. Kim, GwanSeon & Schieffer, Jack & Mark, Tyler, 2020. "Do superfund sites affect local property values? Evidence from a spatial hedonic approach," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 15-28.
    6. Moore, Michael R. & Doubek, Jonathan P. & Xu, Hui & Cardinale, Bradley J., 2020. "Hedonic Price Estimates of Lake Water Quality: Valued Attribute, Instrumental Variables, and Ecological-Economic Benefits," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 176(C).
    7. Okmyung Bin & Jeffrey Czajkowski & Jingyuan Li & Gabriele Villarini, 2017. "Housing Market Fluctuations and the Implicit Price of Water Quality: Empirical Evidence from a South Florida Housing Market," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 68(2), pages 319-341, October.
    8. 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.
    9. Christopher Higgins & Pavlos Kanaroglou, 2018. "Rapid transit, transit-oriented development, and the contextual sensitivity of land value uplift in Toronto," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 55(10), pages 2197-2225, August.
    10. Bala, Alain Pholo & Peeters, Dominique & Thomas, Isabelle, 2014. "Spatial issues on a hedonic estimation of rents in Brussels," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 25(C), pages 104-123.
    11. Germán M. Izón & Michael S. Hand & Matias Fontenla & Robert P. Berrens, 2010. "The Economic Value Of Protecting Inventoried Roadless Areas: A Spatial Hedonic Price Study In New Mexico," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 28(4), pages 537-553, October.
    12. Federico Belotti & Edoardo Di Porto & Gianluca Santoni, 2021. "The effect of local taxes on firm performance: Evidence from geo‐referenced data," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 61(2), pages 492-510, March.
    13. Yasin Sunak & Reinhard Madlener, 2012. "The Impact of Wind Farms on Property Values: A Geographically Weighted Hedonic Pricing Model," FCN Working Papers 3/2012, E.ON Energy Research Center, Future Energy Consumer Needs and Behavior (FCN).
    14. Jonathan Fuhr & Philipp Berens & Dominik Papies, 2024. "Estimating Causal Effects with Double Machine Learning -- A Method Evaluation," Papers 2403.14385, arXiv.org, revised Apr 2024.
    15. Guilherme Resende & Tulio Cravo, 2013. "What about regions in regional science? An exercise of convergence using different geographic scales of European Union," ERSA conference papers ersa13p772, European Regional Science Association.
    16. Jordy Meekes & Wolter H. J. Hassink, 2023. "Endogenous local labour markets, regional aggregation and agglomeration economies," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 57(1), pages 13-25, January.
    17. Patrick J. Walsh & J. Walter Milon & David O. Scrogin, 2011. "The Spatial Extent of Water Quality Benefits in Urban Housing Markets," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 87(4), pages 628-644.
    18. David Maddison, 2009. "A Spatio‐temporal Model of Farmland Values," Journal of Agricultural Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 60(1), pages 171-189, February.
    19. Kent Kovacs & Thomas Holmes & Jeffrey Englin & Janice Alexander, 2011. "The Dynamic Response of Housing Values to a Forest Invasive Disease: Evidence from a Sudden Oak Death Infestation," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 49(3), pages 445-471, July.
    20. Helen Naughton & Pehr-Johan Norbäck & Ayça Tekin-Koru, 2016. "Aggregation Issues of Foreign Direct Investment Estimation in an Interdependent World," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 39(12), pages 2046-2073, December.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • Q0 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - General
    • Q5 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics

    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:ebl:ecbull:eb-18-00997. 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: John P. Conley (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    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.