Economic assessment of odour emissions: an application of Hedonic Price Method

Environmental economics suggests a number of techniques to assess public goods. Such methods, surrogating traditional market mechanism, allow estimations of willingness to pay for improving environmental quality. In the case study proposed in this paper an hedonic price method is implemented to assess the benefits deriving by an improvement of environmental quality due to a reduction in odor emissions. In fact, odor impacts are usually the main pressure perceived by inhabitants living near sugar production plants (localized in Tuscany, in the current case study). The implementation of the hedonic price method allows to exhibit that this kind of externalities affect the real estate market in the nearby the area