Does Size Really Matter? Landfill Scale Impacts on Property Values

Lim, Jong Seok and Missios, Paul (2005): Does Size Really Matter? Landfill Scale Impacts on Property Values. Published in: Applied Economics Letters , Vol. 14, No. 10 (2007): pp. 719-723.

Abstract

The economic advantage of constructing and operating large-scale landfills over small-scale landfills has been used to justify regional landfills as a solution to the municipal waste disposal problem. In addition to the dampening effects on social efforts to divert waste away from landfills, higher external costs of larger landfills may in fact offset the private cost advantages. In this study, the negative effects of a landfill that are capitalized in property values of houses located in the proximity of two landfill sites of significantly different sizes in Toronto, Canada, are examined. The results suggest that larger landfills have greater adverse impacts on property values than smaller landfills, implying consumers perceive (and markets reflect) differences in external costs.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: externalities, landfills, hedonic pricing
• Subjects: H - Public Economics > H4 - Publicly Provided Goods > H41 - Public Goods; Q - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics ; Environmental and Ecological Economics > Q3 - Nonrenewable Resources and Conservation; Q - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics ; Environmental and Ecological Economics > Q3 - Nonrenewable Resources and Conservation > Q31 - Demand and Supply ; Prices

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