A Hedonic Approach to Radiation Contamination Damages

The hedonic method is an econometric tool to calculate implicit evaluation of environmental factors by employing the fact that preference of residents is capitalized into housing price. This paper utilizes the change of land price after the radiation contamination caused by the accident at the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant to calculate the amount of damages under Japanese tort law. The paper argues that the hedonic estimates can be used not only as proprietary loss of land owners but also as nonproprietary loss of residents in the radiation contaminated area. The hedonic method can be employed in other environmental nuisance cases, such as noise nuisance lawsuits and air pollution lawsuits