Detailed economic analysis for the University of Chicago matches high resolution housing data and remediation benefits to conclude positive economic results.

Kevin Haninger, Lala Ma, and Christopher Timmins

Abstract

The US Environmental Protection Agency Brownfields Program awards grants to redevelop contaminated lands known as brownfields. This paper estimates cleanup benefits by combining administrative records for a nationally representative sample of brownfields with high-resolution, high-frequency housing data. With cleanup, we find that property values increase by an average of 5.0% to 11.5%. For a welfare interpretation that does not rely on the intertemporal stability of the hedonic price function, a double-difference matching estimator finds even larger effects of up to 15.2%. Our various specifications lead to the consistent conclusion that Brownfields Program cleanups yield positive, statistically significant, but highly localized effects on housing prices.

Read more...

Posted December 15, 2020