Essays in valuation of non-market environmental impacts
Creators: name: Park, Ju Young
Publisher: name: No Publisher Supplied
Year: 2017

description: In my dissertation, I measure the value of non-market amenities such as environmental quality using the hedonic pricing method in all three chapters.  In Chapter 2, the study examines the price premium from Korea's Energy Efficiency Grade Label. The Korean government recently began energy certification of televisions, providing a setting to analyze a possible price effect of the new label. Hedonic regression results seem to show that a price premium exists for products with the Energy Efficiency Grade Label. However, potential unobserved heterogeneity is a concern. Difference-in-difference and fixed-effects models are used to capture the net effect of the label by controlling for time and product differences. The results suggest that any price premium does not result from the energy efficiency label itself. Instead, energy-efficient products already had higher prices before the introduction of the energy efficiency label. The finding turns our attention to the importance of careful design of labeling programs.   In Chapter 3, using the publicly available housing transaction data in Korea, the study estimates a fixed-effects model to examine the impact of industrial park openings on the housing market in Korea. This study contributes to the literature in three ways. First, the availability of multiple transactions within apartment complexes makes it feasible to carry out a fixed-effects estimation and address unobserved heterogeneity across apartment complexes. Second, I trace the effect on housing values from the announcement stage to actual operation stage of industrial parks. Third, although most previous studies analyze U.S. housing market, I examine the Korean housing market. I find that people in general have positive expectations about parks opening at the time of announcement, but they do not want to be located in close proximity to the park. Furthermore, the housing price effects of announcement and actual start of operation differ. Local households react positively to the news of industrial park openings and remain positive by the time parks begin operation, but households in close proximity to industrial parks react relatively less positively at the time of announcement, and the decline in price premium becomes greater once parks begin operation.  In Chapter 4, I examine the price effect of the Fukushima nuclear accident on the Korean housing market. The Fukushima nuclear disaster triggered by the earthquake and tsunami was an unfortunate accident that is recorded as the worst nuclear accident since the Chernobyl accident. Given the proximity of South Korea to Japan, Koreans were particularly more concerned about the severity of the accident and its environmental and health impacts. Uncertain events such as the Fukushima nuclear accident may cause households to re-evaluate the likelihood of environmental hazard and decrease the values of housing units that are located near the facilities. Current study analyzes how the Korean housing market responds to the Fukushima nuclear disaster, using publicly available housing transactions data. The study compares the prices of apartments located in the nuclear plant-possessing districts with those of the apartments located in adjacent districts. The results indicate that in reaction to the news of disaster in Japan, housing prices decreased radically in those districts with nuclear power plants.