For decades, economists have used the hedonic model to estimate demands for the implicit characteristics of differentiated commodities. The traditional cross-sectional approach to hedonic estimation can recover marginal willingness to pay for characteristics, but has faltered over a difficult...

We re-evaluate two forms of fiscal illusion in local public finance: debt illusion and renter illusion. The Ricardian Equivalence Theorem for local governments suggests the form of finance of a public program (tax or debt finance) has no effects on substantive outcomes. For the local case, this...

This paper reviews the distributional impacts associated with environmental gentrification following the cleanup and reuse of LULUs. By making a neighborhood more attractive, cleanup and reuse of LULUs may drive up local real estate prices. Renters in the neighborhood would have to pay higher...

This paper traces the history of the "Value of Statistical Life" (VSL), which today is used routinely in benefit-cost analysis of life-saving investments. Schelling (1968) made the crucial move of thinking in terms of risk rather than individual lives, with the hope to dodge the moral thicket of...

Understanding the spatial variation in housing prices plays a crucial role in topics ranging from the cost of living to quality-of-life indices to studies of public goods and household mobility. Yet analysts have not reached a consensus on the best source of such data, variously using...

Over the past three decades, the economics profession has developed methods for estimating the public benefits of green spaces, providing an opportunity to incorporate such information into land-use planning. While federal regulations routinely require such estimates for major regulations, the...