Do Landfills Always Depress Nearby Property Values?

All available hedonic pricing estimates of the impact of landfills on nearby property values are assembled, including original estimates for three landfills in Pennsylvania. A meta-analysis shows landfills that accept high volumes of waste (500 tons per day or more) decrease adjacent residential property values by 13.7%, on average. This impact diminishes with distance at a gradient of 5.9% per mile. Lower-volume landfills decrease adjacent property values by 2.7%, on average, with a gradient of 1.3% per mile. While essentially all high-volume landfills negatively impact nearby property values, 20-26% of low-volume landfills do not impact nearby property values.

Spatial Econometric Approaches to Estimating Hedonic Property Value Models

The inclusion of spatial correlation of house price in hedonic pricing model may produce better marginal implicit price estimate(s) of the environmental variable(s) of interest. Most applications where a spatial econometric model is applied to the estimation of a hedonic property value model have used either a spatial lag model or a spatial autoregressive (SAR) error model. Incorrect spatial specification may produce even worse estimate outcome than OLS. Three issues regarding the specification of a spatial hedonic pricing model are considered. First, we question the "convention" of row-standardizing the spatial weights matrix. Second, we argue that the spatial error component (SEC) model is more theoretically intuitive and appealing for modeling house price. Third, we explore whether the choice of spatial model is important, empirically, using a large house sale dataset that includes measures of proximity to landfills. With one exception, estimated marginal implicit prices are fairly robust across all models.row-standardization, spatial econometrics, SEC model, SAR error model, spatial lag model, hedonic pricing, landfill, house price, Public Economics,

The Impact of Agricultural Conservation Easement on House Prices: A New Hedonic Price Model That Incorporates Spatial Autocorrelation and Spatial Heterogeneity

Research Methods/ Statistical Methods,

Benefit Transfer – The Quick, the Dirty, and the Ugly?

Environmental Economics and Policy,

MODELING ECONOMIC GROWTH WITH UNPREDICTABLE SHOCKS: A STATE-LEVEL APPLICATION FOR 1960-90

A Barro-type economic growth model is estimated for the 50 states in the U.S. using data for three decades beginning in 1960. Frontier estimation techniques are used to test for the presence of state-specific shocks to economic growth that are independent of the usual, normally-distributed random errors. We find that large, positive shocks to growth occur during the period 1960-90. Our results indicate that the error term structure assumed each other OLS may not be appropriate for modeling economic growth.Economic growth, Frontier estimation, Shocks, U.S. states, Community/Rural/Urban Development,

OPTIMAL MANAGEMENT OF A FOREST/WILDLIFE SYSTEM WITH BILATERAL EXTERNALITIES

Browsing by large ungulate wildlife species damages valuable trees, but increases the productivity of the wildlife stock. The optimal management of trees and wildlife involves a tradeoff between these two impacts, as well as correct timing of tree harvests from each forest stand. For a model of moose and pine in Norway, it is found that harvest of adjacent forest stands should be adjusted over time to bring the stands into synch. Doing so maximizes the moose productivity boost that occurs immediately following harvest of mature trees, and protects the young trees from overbrowsing by spreading out the browsing pressure among more young trees. This result is, however, sensitive to the specification of the relationship between forage availability and moose productivity.Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

MEASURING CONSUMER BENEFITS OF FOOD SAFETY RISK REDUCTIONS

Microbial pathogens and pesticide residues in food pose a financial burden to society which can be reduced by incurring costs to reduce these food safety risks. We explore three valuation techniques that place a monetary value on food safety risk reductions, and we present a case study for each: a contingent valuation survey on pesticide residues, an experimental auction market for a chicken sandwich with reduced risk of Salmonella, and a cost-of-illness analysis for seven foodborne pathogens. Estimates from these techniques can be used in cost/benefit analyses for policies that reduce food safety risks.Contingent valuation, Cost of illness, Experimental auction market, Food safety, Risk reduction, Salmonella, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety,

DESIGNING WETLAND CONSERVATION STRATEGIES UNDER CLIMATE CHANGE

A methodology for evaluating public wetlands conservation investments that considers climate change is developed and applied to Virginia's Elizabeth River watershed. A revised cellular automaton (CA) model is applied to project future land use change. Discrete stochastic sequential programming (DSSP) is used to model a parcel-based discrete-time decision process.Environmental Economics and Policy,

Drosophila Ribosomal Protein Mutants Control Tissue Growth Non-Autonomously via Effects on the Prothoracic Gland and Ecdysone

The ribosome is critical for all aspects of cell growth due to its essential role in protein synthesis. Paradoxically, many Ribosomal proteins (Rps) act as tumour suppressors in Drosophila and vertebrates. To examine how reductions in Rps could lead to tissue overgrowth, we took advantage of the observation that an RpS6 mutant dominantly suppresses the small rough eye phenotype in a cyclin E hypomorphic mutant (cycEJP). We demonstrated that the suppression of cycEJP by the RpS6 mutant is not a consequence of restoring CycE protein levels or activity in the eye imaginal tissue. Rather, the use of UAS-RpS6 RNAi transgenics revealed that the suppression of cycEJP is exerted via a mechanism extrinsic to the eye, whereby reduced Rp levels in the prothoracic gland decreases the activity of ecdysone, the steroid hormone, delaying developmental timing and hence allowing time for tissue and organ overgrowth. These data provide for the first time a rationale to explain the counter-intuitive organ overgrowth phenotypes observed for certain members of the Minute class of Drosophila Rp mutants. They also demonstrate how Rp mutants can affect growth and development cell non-autonomously

Unexpected species diversity in electric eels with a description of the strongest living bioelectricity generator

Is there only one electric eel species? For two and a half centuries since its description by Linnaeus, Electrophorus electricus has captivated humankind by its capacity to generate strong electric discharges. Despite the importance of Electrophorus in multiple fields of science, the possibility of additional species-level diversity in the genus, which could also reveal a hidden variety of substances and bioelectrogenic functions, has hitherto not been explored. Here, based on overwhelming patterns of genetic, morphological, and ecological data, we reject the hypothesis of a single species broadly distributed throughout Greater Amazonia. Our analyses readily identify three major lineages that diverged during the Miocene and Pliocene—two of which warrant recognition as new species. For one of the new species, we recorded a discharge of 860 V, well above 650 V previously cited for Electrophorus, making it the strongest living bioelectricity generator. © 2019, The Author(s)