NASCAR as a Public Good

Abstract This paper looks for evidence that either a NASCAR track or NASCAR-sanctioned event influences the monthly rents on residential units. Data cover individual housing units in more than 140 SMSAs over the period spanning from 1993 until 2005. During this period, several new tracks opened, while some other tracks closed, and numerous races changed venues. These changes enable us to identify the capitalization of costs and benefits to a community from the presence of NASCAR tracks and events into rental values. The evidence is mixed, varying with the treatment of housing units located in or out of central cities of SMSAs, as well as the manner in which missing housing and community characteristics are treated in the analysis. The results are reasonably clear that presence of a track by itself has little effect, especially on housing units outside the central city of an SMSA. Specific types of races largely appear to have no impact, though in some specifications, the central city and non-central city impacts are about equal but have opposite signs. In these cases, the indication is that the NASCAR events affect non-central city rents, but not those in the central city. Overall, we must conclude that our results reject NASCAR as a source of either large benefits or costs to residents of the host community.