IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/regeco/v47y2014icp25-34.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The capitalization of green labels in the California housing market

Author

Listed:
  • Kahn, Matthew E.
  • Kok, Nils

Abstract

The residential sector accounts for 33% of electricity consumption in the U.S., with a total expenditure of $166billion in 2010. Increasing the energy efficiency of the durable housing stock can thus provide significant cost savings for consumers. One promising trend is the rise of homes labeled by a third party as “green” or energy efficient. This paper documents evidence on the effects of providing information about the energy efficiency and “sustainability” of structures in affecting consumer choice. We conduct a hedonic pricing analysis of all single-family home sales in California over the time period 2007 to 2012, and find that homes labeled with a green label transact at a small premium relative to otherwise comparable, non-labeled homes. We show evidence of spatial variation in this capitalization such that both environmental ideology and local climatic conditions play a role in explaining the variation in the green premium across geographies.

Suggested Citation

  • Kahn, Matthew E. & Kok, Nils, 2014. "The capitalization of green labels in the California housing market," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 25-34.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:regeco:v:47:y:2014:i:c:p:25-34
    DOI: 10.1016/j.regsciurbeco.2013.07.001
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0166046213000574
    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. Piet Eichholtz & Nils Kok & John M. Quigley, 2013. "The Economics of Green Building," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 95(1), pages 50-63, March.
    2. Derwall, Jeroen & Koedijk, Kees & Ter Horst, Jenke, 2011. "A tale of values-driven and profit-seeking social investors," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 35(8), pages 2137-2147, August.
    3. Dastrup, Samuel R. & Graff Zivin, Joshua & Costa, Dora L. & Kahn, Matthew E., 2012. "Understanding the Solar Home price premium: Electricity generation and “Green” social status," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 56(5), pages 961-973.
    4. Ferreira, Fernando & Gyourko, Joseph & Tracy, Joseph, 2010. "Housing busts and household mobility," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(1), pages 34-45, July.
    5. Matthew J. Kotchen, 2006. "Green Markets and Private Provision of Public Goods," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 114(4), pages 816-845, August.
    6. Matthew E. Kahn & Nils Kok & John M. Quigley, 2013. "Commercial Building Electricity Consumption Dynamics: The Role of Structure Quality, Human Capital, and Contract Incentives," NBER Working Papers 18781, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Ginger Zhe Jin & Phillip Leslie, 2009. "Reputational Incentives for Restaurant Hygiene," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 1(1), pages 237-267, February.
    8. Black, Dan A. & Smith, J.A.Jeffrey A., 2004. "How robust is the evidence on the effects of college quality? Evidence from matching," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 121(1-2), pages 99-124.
    9. Deng, Yongheng & Li, Zhiliang & Quigley, John M., 2012. "Economic returns to energy-efficient investments in the housing market: Evidence from Singapore," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(3), pages 506-515.
    10. Kahn, Matthew E., 2011. "Do liberal cities limit new housing development? Evidence from California," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(2), pages 223-228, March.
    11. Rosen, Sherwin, 1974. "Hedonic Prices and Implicit Markets: Product Differentiation in Pure Competition," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 82(1), pages 34-55, Jan.-Feb..
    12. Raphael W. Bostic & Kwan Ok Lee, 2008. "Mortgages, Risk, and Homeownership among Low- and Moderate-Income Families," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(2), pages 310-314, May.
    13. Mark Bils & Peter J. Klenow, 1998. "Using Consumer Theory to Test Competing Business Cycle Models," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 106(2), pages 233-261, April.
    14. Brounen, Dirk & Kok, Nils & Quigley, John M., 2013. "Energy literacy, awareness, and conservation behavior of residential households," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 42-50.
    15. Piet Eichholtz & Nils Kok & John M. Quigley, 2010. "Doing Well by Doing Good? Green Office Buildings," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(5), pages 2492-2509, December.
    16. Kahn, Matthew E., 2007. "Do greens drive Hummers or hybrids? Environmental ideology as a determinant of consumer choice," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 54(2), pages 129-145, September.
    17. Graff Zivin, Joshua & Neidell, Matthew, 2009. "Days of haze: Environmental information disclosure and intertemporal avoidance behavior," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 58(2), pages 119-128, September.
    18. Hunt Allcott & Michael Greenstone, 2012. "Is There an Energy Efficiency Gap?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 26(1), pages 3-28, Winter.
    19. John Y. Campbell & Stefano Giglio & Parag Pathak, 2011. "Forced Sales and House Prices," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(5), pages 2108-2131, August.
    20. Allcott, Hunt, 2011. "Social norms and energy conservation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(9-10), pages 1082-1095, October.
    21. Shimshack, Jay P. & Ward, Michael B., 2010. "Mercury advisories and household health trade-offs," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(5), pages 674-685, September.
    22. Quigley, John M & Rubinfeld, Daniel L, 1989. "Unobservables in Consumer Choice: Residential Energy and the Demand for Comfort," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 71(3), pages 416-425, August.
    23. Allcott, Hunt, 2011. "Social norms and energy conservation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(9), pages 1082-1095.
    24. Gyourko, Joseph & Kahn, Matthew & Tracy, Joseph, 1999. "Quality of life and environmental comparisons," Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics,in: P. C. Cheshire & E. S. Mills (ed.), Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 37, pages 1413-1454 Elsevier.
    25. C. Lanier Benkard & Patrick Bajari, 2005. "Hedonic Price Indexes With Unobserved Product Characteristics, and Application to Personal Computers," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 23, pages 61-75, January.
    26. A. Greening, Lorna & Greene, David L. & Difiglio, Carmen, 2000. "Energy efficiency and consumption -- the rebound effect -- a survey," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 28(6-7), pages 389-401, June.
    27. Ginger Zhe Jin & Phillip Leslie, 2003. "The Effect of Information on Product Quality: Evidence from Restaurant Hygiene Grade Cards," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 118(2), pages 409-451.
    28. Nils Kok & Marquise McGraw & John M. Quigley, 2011. "The Diffusion of Energy Efficiency in Building," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(3), pages 77-82, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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:regeco:v:47:y:2014:i:c:p:25-34. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Dana Niculescu). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/regec .

    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 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.

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.