TY  - JOUR
AU  - Currie,Janet
AU  - Davis,Lucas
AU  - Greenstone,Michael
AU  - Walker,Reed
TI  - Do Housing Prices Reflect Environmental Health Risks? Evidence from More than 1600 Toxic Plant Openings and Closings
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 18700
PY  - 2013
Y2  - January 2013
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w18700
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w18700.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Janet Currie
Princeton University
316 Wallace Hall
Princeton, NJ 08544
Tel: 609-258-7393
Fax: 609-258-5974
E-Mail: jcurrie@princeton.edu

Lucas W. Davis
Haas School of Business
University of California
Berkeley, CA 94720-1900
Tel: 510/642-1651
E-Mail: ldavis@haas.berkeley.edu

Michael Greenstone
MIT Department of Economics
50 Memorial Drive, E52-359
Cambridge, MA 02142-1347
Tel: 617/452-4127
Fax: 617/253-1330
E-Mail: mgreenst@mit.edu

Reed Walker
50 University Hall, MC 7360
Berkeley, CA 94720-7360
E-Mail: rwalker@haas.berkeley.edu
AB  - A ubiquitous and largely unquestioned assumption in studies of housing markets is that there is perfect information about local amenities. This paper measures the housing market and health impacts of 1,600 openings and closings of industrial plants that emit toxic pollutants. We find that housing values within one mile decrease by 1.5 percent when plants open, and increase by 1.5 percent when plants close. This implies an aggregate loss in housing values per plant of about $1.5 million. While the housing value impacts are concentrated within 1/2 mile, we find statistically significant infant health impacts up to one mile away.
ER  -