Published:
Cambridge, Mass: National Bureau of Economic Research, April 2011
Published in:NBER working paper series ; no. w16992
Extent:
1 Online-Ressource
Language:
English
DOI:
10.3386/w16992
Identifier:
Reproduction note:
Hardcopy version available to institutional subscribers
Origination:
Footnote:
Mode of access: World Wide Web
System requirements: Adobe [Acrobat] Reader required for PDF files
Description:
With the decline of the traditional hukou system, migrants in China have a broad set of cities to choose from. Within an open system of cities, compensating differentials theory predicts that local real estate prices will reflect the marginal valuation of non-market local public goods. More polluted cities will feature lower real estate prices. But, local pollution may be caused by booming local industries. To address such endogeneity concerns, we estimate hedonic regressions using an instrumental variable strategy based on "imports" of pollution from nearby sources. By documenting the importance of spatial emissions patterns, our study highlights how real estate prices in one city are affected by Pigouvian externalities originating in another location. On average, a 10% decrease in imported neighbor pollution is associated with a 1.8% increase in local home prices