Environmental Conditions,Reservation Prices,and Time on the Market for Housing

A general analytical model to describe the impact of environmental disamenities on duration of sales is derived. A statistical technique to recover a sellers reservation price is proposed. An econometric procedure that consistently estimates market duration and a sellers reservation price is described. An application to the impact of highway noise on property values and market duration is presented. The estimation results show that, while highway noise has a significant negative impact on forming reservation prices and predicting sale prices, the noise effect on duration of sales is not statistically significant. Empirical evidence also shows a negative impact of market duration on reservation prices, which indicates an updating process for reservation prices over time.     

Hedonic price and depreciation indexes for residential housing: A comment

A regression technique for developing residential real estate price indexes using repeat sales on properties has not allowed the separation of depreciation from true price changes. In a recent article Chinloy [2] has proposed a method for achieving this separation. This note shows that his theoretical derivation is incorrect. A corrected model is then used to show the stringent assumptions that are necessary to interpret his empirical results as measuring embodied technological change. The true price effects and the depreciation effects still cannot be separated in such a model.     

Short Run Constraints and the Increasing Marginal Value of Time in Recreation

Leisure activities such as local recreation trips usually take place in discrete blocks of time that are surrounded by time devoted to other commitments. It can be costly to transfer time between blocks to allow for longer outings. These observations affect the value of time within those blocks and suggest that traditional methods for valuing time using labor markets miss important considerations. This paper presents a new model for time valuation that uses non-employment time commitments to infer the shadow value of time spent in recreation. A unique survey that elicited revealed and stated preference data on household time allocation is used to implement the model. The results support the conclusion that there is an increasing marginal value of time for recreation as the trip length increases.     

Transportation Improvements and Land Values in the Antebellum United States: A Hedonic Approach

We offer county-level estimates of the effect of water and rail access on the value of antebellum farms. Employing a hedonic model, we find that in 1850 average farm values in counties with access to a canal or navigable river were $2.68 per acre greater than counties without such access and $1.80 greater with rail access. In 1860 the figures were $3.75 for a canal or river access and $1.35 for rail. With average farm size around 200 acres and per capita national income roughly $150 during the decade, we conclude that on average transportation access yielded substantial economic gains.     

Measuring environmental effects on property values without hedonic regressions

The effect of environmental nuisances on property values has been frequently studied using hedonic regressions, yet that method has extensive data and estimation requirements. The technique developed in this paper uses repeat sales on houses to substantially reduce these requirements. The technique adjusts for depreciation between sales and allows for nonzero error covariance terms when a house has been sold more than twice. The effect of highway noise on property values is studied using this method, and the results are statistically equivalent to the results of an extensive hedonic study for the same area.     

Strategies for survival in the hospital industry.

Hospitals, besieged by new competitors and pressured to cut costs, are entering a new and unfamiliar environment. As usage declines and the government's new prospective payment system makes itself felt, hospitals are feeling the pinch. Nonprofit hospitals face competition from newer, for-profit providers of health care. These authors discuss the factors that have led some hospitals to close and forced most others to consider how they can lower costs while maintaining high-quality care. Several strategies exist to help hospitals cope with their new problems. The authors point out the advantages and disadvantages of downsizing, diversification, and joint ventures, among other practical measures that hospitals can take.     

Marine Debris, Beach Quality, and Non-Market Values

This paper reports the first attempt to measure the importance of controlling marine debris as an aesthetic characteristic of beaches and coastal area. The results are based on a contingent valuation survey designed to estimate the economic value people would place on controlling marine debris on recreational beaches in New Jersey and North Carolina. A Weibull survival model was estimated treating for and against votes as defining censoring points for an unknown willingness to pay distribution. The findings suggest: (1) people do distinguish situations with differing amounts of debris when they are described using color photographs; (2) the pilot survey implies measures of people's willingness to pay (WTP) for debris control are consistent with a scope test in that larger WTP is associated with programs intended to address situations for more serious background levels of debris; and (3) local beach conditions seem to influence how people interpreted the plans describing beach conditions without the proposed control programs.