the amenity and disamenity impacts of agriculture estimates from a hedonic pricing model the positive and negative externalities from farmland are increasingly a focus of public policy discussion about agriculture and land use a gis based hedonic pricing model shows that agricultural open space increases nearby residential property values but larger scale animal operations and mushroom production have negative impacts animal production facilities with as few as 200 animal equivalent units reduce nearby property values but larger facilities do not necessarily generate larger impacts because they tend to occur together the negative impacts of animal agriculture and the positive impacts of open space must be simultaneously modeled to avoid omitted variable bias

the economics of export performance requirements this paper analyzes the resource allocation and welfare effects of export performance requirements imposed on foreign investors it argues that a satisfactory analysis must consider the presence of tariff distortions and oligopolistic behavior in host country markets these create a second best environment in which an evaluation of the welfare effects of such requirements is no longer straightforward it is concluded that export requirements can improve home welfare by reducing payments to foreign capital reducing the output of commodities which are being overproduced and shifting profits toward domestically owned firms

an alternative to the standard spatial econometric approaches in hedonic house price models omitted misspecified or mismeasured spatially varying characteristics are a cause for concern in hedonic house price models spatial econometrics or spatial fixed effects have become popular ways of addressing these concerns we discuss the limitations of standard spatial approaches to hedonic modeling and demonstrate the spatial generalized additive model as an alternative parameter estimates for several spatially varying regressors are shown to be sensitive to the scale of the fixed effects and bandwidth dimension used to control for omitted variables this sensitivity reflects the uncertainty associated with the estimates when the appropriate spatial scale of the controls is unknown

a dynamic approach to estimating hedonic prices for environmental goods an application to open space purchase if housing markets exhibit slow adjustment to system shocks then hedonic estimates of the price impact from environmental amenity trends may be time variant this paper suggests an alternative to the cross sectional model for estimating hedonic prices using an error correction approach that allows for endogenous environmental quality the model is applied to data concerning an open space purchase program in boulder colorado and shows that the economic impact of an open space purchase takes several years to be fully realized this observation questions using cross sectional hedonic models for evaluating willingness to pay for time trended environmental amenities

examining the role of economic opportunity and amenities in explaining population redistribution abstract this paper develops a model of migration integrating equilibrium and disequilibrium components in which individuals and firms form rational expectations about future opportunities levels of migration are derived as functions of variations in factors influencing migrant labor demand economic opportunity and migrant labor supply residential amenities the model is used to estimate the extent to which migration in the united states over the period 1950 1980 is determined by these two classes of exogenous factors

migration regional equilibrium and the estimation of compensating differentials in this study we have developed an improved model of net migration that encompasses both equilibrium and disequilibrium components instrumental variables fixed effects estimates of the model with time series data for 51 areas in the united states over the period 1971 1988 support the importance of both equilibrium and disequilibrium factors in migration excerpt

beyond implicit prices recovering theoretically consistent and transferable values for noise avoidance from a hedonic property price model using a two stage hedonic pricing methodology we estimate a system of structural demand equations for different sources of transport related noise in the first stage we identify market segments using model based clustering techniques and estimate separate hedonic price functions hpfs for each segment in so doing we show how a semiparametric spatial smoothing estimator outperforms other standard specifications of the hpf in the second stage we control for non linearity of the budget constraint and identify demand relationships using techniques that account for problems of endogeneity and censoring of the dependent variable our estimated demand functions provide welfare estimates for peace and quiet that we believe to be the first derived from property market data in a theoretically consistent manner

public conservation land and employment growth in the northern forest region we quantify the effect that public conservation lands have on employment growth in the northern forest region of the united states a model of simultaneous employment and net migration growth is estimated with data on non metropolitan counties from 1990 to 1997 exogenous variables include the 1990 share of the land base in public conservation uses we find that net migration rates were higher in counties with more conservation lands but the effects are relatively small no significant effect on employment growth is detected as well variables measuring changes in public timber harvests have no effect on employment growth

jobs versus amenities in the analysis of metropolitan migration abstract this paper demonstrates that jobs and wages are considerably more important than location specific amenities in explaining net metropolitan migration of employed persons these results which are derived mainly from a unique set of annual migration data differ considerably from the earlier findings of p e graves j urban econom 6 135 147 1979 that show amenities to be powerful contributors to the analysis of net metropolitan migration several hypotheses are offered and tested to explain the appreciable difference between graves s results and those of the present study but the importance of economic factors as opposed to amenities persists the findings of this study are generally consistent with the earlier findings of muth southern econom j 37 295 306 1971

tax wedges and mobile capital an import tariff or an export tax drives a wedge between the domestic price of a traded good faced in one country and that in another but what can be said about the price of the taxed good relative to the price of untaxed goods in two countries the standard lloyd metzler and abba lerner potentiall y paradoxical answers to this question are reconsidered in a trading world where one kind of sector specific capital is internationally mo bile it is argued that there is a presumption that taxing trade in c ommodities tends to weaken the price both domestically and in world markets of the good which utilizes mobile capital copyright 1987 by the editors of the scandinavian journal of economics

the co2 growth nexus revisited a nonparametric analysis for the g7 economies over nearly two centuries abstract using a long dataset and some recently popularized nonparametric econometric techniques this study revisits the nexus between economic growth and carbon dioxide co 2 emissions for the g7 countries over nearly two centuries the use of nonparametric modelling is warranted by the fact that long historical time series are often subject to structural breaks and other forms of nonlinearity over the course of time we employ nonparametric cointegration and causality tests along with the cross validated local linear regression analysis and validate the existence of the environmental kuznets curve in six of the g7 countries canada france germany italy u k and the u s and the only exception is japan our empirical analysis also finds co 2 emissions and economic growth to be cointegrated and closely interrelated in the granger sense our results are robust and highlight the nonlinear causal relationship between the two variables

tariff protection and taxation of foreign capital the welfare implications for a small country abstract this paper extends recent studies by deriving sufficient conditions for tariff immiserization in a small country in the presence of internationally mobile sector specific capital the returns of which are taxed or subsidized necessary conditions for a welfare augmenting tariff are also discussed and the analysis is extended to the welfare implications of changes in the tax or subsidy rate on the earnings of migrating capital

using referendum data to characterize public support for purchasing development rights to farmland an econometric model that de scribes public support for farmland preservation programs as a function of local land use pat terns and socioeconomic data is developed two versions of the model are estimated using data from referenda conducted in pennsylvania and rhode island during 1982 through 1990 results suggest that support for referenda that purchase development rights is stronger in counties and towns with both rapidly increasing population and where land and house values have increased at higher rates environmental factors such as the prevalence of resource sensitive lands are also significant in describing the public s moti vation to preserve farmland jel q15

trade restrictions with imported intermediate inputs when does the trade balance improve the author s model demonstrates that when imports are predominantly intermediate inputs as they are in most developing countries import restrictions can not always be relied upon to improve the trade balance such restrictions act as a supply shock to the economy unless nontraded goods are intensive users of imported intermediaries the general equilibrium consequence of import restrictions is a large enough reduction in export supplies to swamp the direct effect of the restrictions the result is a deterioration of the trade balance

wages rents and the quality of life this study focuses on the role of wages and rents in allocating workers to locations with various quantities of amenities the theory demonstrates that if the amenity is also productive then the sign of the wage gradient is unclear while the rent gradient is positive the theory is extended to include the housing market and nontraded goods these extensions require little modification of the conclusion the empirical work on wages shows that the regional wage differences can be explained largely by these local attributes with the use of site price data implicit prices are estimated and quality of life rankings for the cities are computed

export share requirements trade balances and welfare a two period analysis abstract this paper provides a two period three sector general equilibrium model for examining the effects of a temporary increase in export share requirements to foreign owned firms on the trade balance and national welfare the analysis suggests that the policy of a temporary rise in export requirements results in increases in the non tradable prices for both periods as well as intertemporal welfare the policy also leads to an improvement in the first period trade balance

low income housing in high amenity areas long run effects on residential development centre left governments from the 1940s into the 1970s developed several large areas in the urban fringe of dunedin new zealand for low density mostly single family public rental housing the public housing in these areas is now accessible well endowed with natural amenities and allocated to very low income households analysis of the spatial variation in natural amenities with that of household incomes and house characteristics suggests large scale effects of the public housing developments diversion of higher income housing to other suburban areas and possibly maintenance of older high quality housing in central areas interestingly centre right governments may have opened the door to market forces by encouraging tenants to purchase their public rental house we find evidence that recent general increases in house prices have encouraged relatively high income households to purchase ex state rentals in these high natural amenity areas

residential amenities firm location and economic development amenities are regarded as increasingly important to the location decisions of certain types of firm yet they are often ignored in economic development research because of the assumption that they attract only workers and that this workforce in turn attracts firms this paper argues for a reduced form model of the impact of amenities on corporate location when testing such a model at the intra metropolitan scale it will be necessary to measure amenities not only at the potential worksite but also where employees are likely to live this paper tests such a firm location model using a sample of municipalities in northern new jersey results support the hypothesis that firms evaluate certain amenities with respect to the likely residential locations of their employees

should export share requirements be implemented under quota protection in this paper the authors develop a model to analyze the effects of export share requirements when a quota is in place they show that when foreign capital is located in specific economic activity zones identified with the importable sector an increase in export share requirements reduces welfare owing to the price induced higher payments to foreign capital

the role of natural resource amenities in attracting retirees implications for economic growth policy abstract increasing criticism of resource extractive and polluting heavy duty industries in urban areas as well as continuing declines in timbering farming and mining in rural areas have created challenges for planners and policy makers seeking sustainable rural economies earlier studies have concluded that a retiree economy is a viable approach for rural economic sustainability using specific measures of natural amenities that are variant over time this study examined the role that natural amenity resources have played in attracting retirees results reveal that the rural and biologically rich counties with substantial land use diversity water amenities and other man modified natural and recreational attractions have great potential for attracting retirees the findings from this study can be useful for local and regional agencies to identity their latent potential to promote retiree economy and also to predict the future amenity demands in addition we draw other policy implications regarding regional economic growth and ecological concern in rural america

tariffs foreign capital and immiserizing growth with urban unemployment and specific factors of production abstract in this note we show that a recent observation of brecher alejandro as regards tariff induced capital inflows essentially extends to a setting with urban unemployment three factors of production and a variety of labor market conditions in the urban sector

wages rents and amenities differences among workers and regions what explains persistent regional earnings differences this paper argues that regional differences in amenities can account for the wage differences in contrast cost of living variations do not account for wage differences but actually exacerbate them this conclusion results from a model in which variations in rents and wages are equalizing differences for amenity differences empirical results are consistent with the model

landscape amenities and local development a review of migration regional economic and hedonic pricing studies abstract with rapid urban expansion and loss of open space attractive local landscapes will continue to gain importance in location decisions and on political agendas the present study reviews the evidence on the local economic role of landscape amenities from two major strands of empirical research migration and regional economic models and hedonic pricing models following common amenity definitions we identify 71 relevant peer reviewed studies and systematically assess the reported effects of the landscape amenity variables the migration and regional economic studies suggest that migrants are attracted by amenities nearly as often as by low taxes reported effects of amenities on income and employment are less consistent the hedonic studies suggest that nature reserves and land cover diversity have mostly open space and forest often and agricultural land rarely positive effects on housing prices studies at larger geographic scales and studies involving urban areas were more likely to identify significant amenity effects some limitations of the evidence may be overcome with better datasets and modeling approaches however in line with other recent work the limitations also highlight the need for complementary information from the analysis of political preferences for land use management

tariffs quotas and voluntary export restraints with and without internationally mobile capital this paper presents a general framework for comparing the effects of tariffs quotas and vers voluntary export restraints both with and without international capital mobility expressions for the shadow price of foreign exchange and the shadow price of capital under each type of trade restriction are derived and it is shown that although international capital mobility raises the welfare cost of tariff protection it lowers the welfare cost of quantitative restrictions in most cases the effects of exogenous shocks in the presence of quotas are intermediate between those in the presence of tariffs and those in the presence of vers tarifs douaniers contingentements et restrictions volontaires d l exportation quand le capital est ou n est pas mobile internationalement l auteur presente un cadre general d analyse qu il utilise pour comparer les effets de tarifs douaniers de contingentements et de restrictions volontaires a l exportation dans des contextes ofu le capital est ou n est pas mobile internationalement l auteur derive le prix fictif du change etranger et le prix fictif du capital sous l un et l autre types de restrictions au commerce et montre que meme si la mobilite internationale du capital augmente le cofut en terme de bien etre de la protection tarifaire elle reduit le cofut en terme de bien etre des restrictions sur les quantites echangees dans tous les cas les effets de chocs exogenes quand des contingentements existent sont toujours dans la fourchette entre ceux qu on observe quand des tarifs douaniers existent et ceux qui prevalent quand des restrictions volontaires i l exportation existent

the role of amenities and quality of life in rural economic growth a structural model of regional economic growth is estimated using data for 2243 rural u s counties five indices designed to capture specific amenity and quality of life characteristics are constructed using fifty four separate indicators results suggest that amenity characteristics can be organized into consistent and meaningful empirical measures that move beyond ad hoc descriptions of amenities in addition to insights into the influence of local characteristics ranging from tax burdens to income distribution on regional economic growth results suggest that predictable relationships between amenities quality of life and local economic performance exist

house selection via the internet by considering homebuyers risk attitudes with s shaped utility functions abstract the widespread use of the internet has significantly changed the behavior of homebuyers using online real estate agents homebuyers can rapidly find some modern houses that meet their needs however most current online housing systems provide limit features in particular existing systems fail to consider homebuyers housing goals and risk attitudes to increase effectiveness online real estate agents should provide an efficient matching mechanism personalized service and house ranking with the aim of increasing both buyers satisfaction and deal rate an efficient online real estate agent should provide an easy way for homebuyers to find rank a suitable house alternatives with consideration of their different housing philosophies and risk attitudes in order to comprehend these ambiguous housing goals and risk attitudes it is also indispensable to determine a satisfaction level for each fuzzy goal and constraint in this study we propose fuzzy goal programming with an s shaped utility function as a decision aid to help homebuyers in choosing their preferred house via the internet in an easy way with the use of a decision aid homebuyers can specify their housing goals and constraints with different priority levels and thresholds as a matching mechanism for a fuzzy search while the matching mechanism can be translated into a standard query language for a regular relational database moreover a laboratory experiment is conducted on a real case to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach the results indicate that the proposed method provides better customer satisfaction than manual systems in housing selection service

migration fixed costs and location specific amenities a hazard analysis for a panel of males this article presents econometric estimates of the adult working age male hazard function of interstate migration fitted to data obtained from migration decisions of adult males over a twenty year period the results show a strong negative effect of the real wage difference between origin and destination and of fixed costs associated with a move on the hazard rate of interstate migration farmers and other self employed males and males who have school age children have unusually low hazard rates of interstate migration although a high crime rate is shown to increase the real wage it also has a separate positive effect on the hazard of migration

evidence of the effects of water quality on residential land prices we use hedonic techniques to show that water quality has a significant effect on property values along the chesapeake bay we calculate the potential benefits from an illustrative but limited water quality improvement and we calculate an upper bound to the benefits from a more widespread improvement many environmental hedonic studies have almost entirely ignored the potential for omitted variables bias the possibility that pollution sources in addition to emitting undesirable substances are likely to be unpleasant neighbors we discuss the implications of this oversight and we provide an application that addresses this potential problem o 2000 acadcmic prcss

the effect of natural space on nearby property prices accounting for perceived attractiveness this paper estimates the effect of attractive natural space on dutch residential property prices we operationalize attractive natural spaces by combining land use data with unique data on the perceived attractiveness of natural spaces in our main results the effect of attractive natural space on property prices falls from 16 0 for properties within 0 5 km to 1 6 for properties up to 7 km away our findings advance existing hedonic studies by verifying that economic benefits of living near natural space extend over a larger distance this has important implications for public policy regarding investment in natural space near residential areas jel h41 q51

hedonic prices property values and measuring environmental benefits a survey of the issues this paper provides a review of the theoretical basis and the assumptions required in order to use hedonic price equations derived from property value data to obtain measures of the prices and the inverse demand functions for environmental amenities such as air quality it also includes a review and assessment of existing empirical applications of the technique to problems of air and water quality and urban noise

the amenity value of woodland in great britain a comparison of economic estimates forests produce benefits over and above the revenue yielded from timber and other wood based products most important among these may be the recreational benefits for visitors which have been examined in several studies total benefits for residents are perhaps more accurately captured in property values since ceteris paribus the price of a house reflects willingness to pay to live near an environmental amenity such as a forest to gain access to it and also the amenity non use value of the forest in so far as it creates a pleasant landscape however the total non priced value of forestry is not the sum of hpm and itcm benefit estimates recreational benefits will typically be less and will be subsumed in the hpm estimates since the hedonic price is partly induced by the value of recreational access

intra regional amenities wages and home prices the role of forests in the southwest forests provide non market goods and services that people are implicitly willing to pay for through hedonic housing and labor markets but it is unclear if compensating differentials arise in these markets at the regional level this empirical question is addressed in a study of arizona and new mexico hedonicregressionsofhousingpricesandwagesusing census and geographic data show that forest area carries an implicit price of between 27 and 36 per square mile annually compensating differentials at the regional level suggest that care must be taken when applying the travel cost method to value regionallydelineated characteristics jel q23 r14

voting on open space what explains the appearance and support of municipal level open space conservation referenda in the united states abstract numerous communities in the united states have been willing to use public funds to protect open space the amount of money allocated for open space protection by local and state governments exceeds the budget of the largest federal land protection program in the u s the conservation reserve program this paper analyzes what types of municipalities hold open space referenda and the level of support for these referenda factors that increased the probability of a municipality holding an open space referendum from 2000 to 2004 were large population low population density rapid growth of the surrounding area and highly educated and environmentally concerned residents increases in median household income up to 100 000 increased the likelihood of a vote but further increases in income beyond 100 000 decreased the likelihood for municipalities holding an open space referendum factors that increased support for passage of the referendum were rapid growth low unemployment rates highly educated residents and no new taxes given high levels of support for open space referenda 76 of municipal level referenda held from 2000 through 2004 passed the spatial pattern of locally managed open space will be largely determined by the factors that affect referenda appearance on a municipal ballot this conclusion suggests that locally managed conservation hotspots will cluster around fast growing affluent communities with highly educated residents such hotspots may or may not align with overall conservation priorities non governmental and environmental organizations should focus efforts on helping communities in locally managed conservation coldspots secure open space

on the price of land and the value of amenities a house represents not only a bundle of structural characteristics but also a set of location specific characteristics adding locational coordinates and site area to other house characteristics makes it possible to estimate a land rent surface as well as thle hedonic prices attached to local patterns of land use and other neighbourhood characteristics one can then estimate how the value of such location specific characteristics are capitalized into land prices this analysis illustrated with estimates based on data from two british towns has a number of wider implications it generates a more parsimonious method of estimating amenity values it also reveals likely systematic biases produced by conventional hedonic studies which exclude land and location finally it clarifies the conceptual definition of land and suggests that monocentric models can perform well despite recent criticism