Essays on the Economic Value of Environmental Cleanup
Won, Doohwan
This item is only available for download by members of the University of Illinois community. Students, faculty, and staff at the U of I may log in with your NetID and password to view the item. If you are trying to access an Illinois-restricted dissertation or thesis, you can request a copy through your library's Inter-Library Loan office or purchase a copy directly from ProQuest.
Permalink
https://hdl.handle.net/2142/82992
Description
Title
Essays on the Economic Value of Environmental Cleanup
Author(s)
Won, Doohwan
Issue Date
2007
Doctoral Committee Chair(s)
Braden, John B.
Department of Study
Agricultural and Consumer Economics
Discipline
Agricultural and Consumer Economics
Degree Granting Institution
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Degree Name
Ph.D.
Degree Level
Dissertation
Keyword(s)
Economics, Agricultural
Language
eng
Abstract
We offer three different essays on economic values of environmental cleanup. The first essay summarizes and integrates the previous noxious and hazardous site evaluation studies by a meta analysis. We find that the property value is the most sensitive to water base contamination, published case studies result in systematically greater environmental value than those in unpublished reports, and real estate markets show responses to environmental condition changes. The second study uses sales and assessment data together with survey responses to estimate the local welfare gains to property owners from the cleanup of a contaminated site. This study indicates that home owners' average willingness to pay (WTP) for full cleanup of Sheboygan River is equivalent to $12, 247. The average WTP for full cleanup in Buffalo is $7,833. In addition, we examine the importance of heterogeneous preference by including both demographic characteristics and psychometric data in the model specifications. We find that the psychometric data do not seem to add much beyond the demographic variables. The third essay focuses on the potential spillover from cleanup. We find that households express greater WTP for cleanup of the Lower Buffalo River AOC than to avoid its stigma by moving away. The difference of WTPs might be caused by an environmental premium, a spillover from cleanup. Where it occurs, property values should rebound by more than the discounts evident in the presence of contamination.
Use this login method if you
don't
have an
@illinois.edu
email address.
(Oops, I do have one)
IDEALS migrated to a new platform on June 23, 2022. If you created
your account prior to this date, you will have to reset your password
using the forgot-password link below.