Gone with the Wind: Valuing the Visual Impacts of Wind Turbines through House Prices

Stephen Gibbons

SERC Discussion Papers from Centre for Economic Performance, LSE

Abstract: This study provides quantitative evidence on the local benefits and costs of wind farm developments in England and Wales, focussing on their visual environmental impacts. In the tradition of studies in environmental, public and urban economics, housing costs are used to reveal local preferences for views of wind farm developments. Estimation is based on quasi-experimental research designs that compare price changes occurring in places where wind farms become visible, with price changes in appropriate comparator groups. These comparator groups include places close to wind farms that became visible in the past, or where they will become operational in the future and places close to wind farms sites but where the turbines are hidden by the terrain. All these comparisons suggest that wind farm visibility reduces local house prices, and the implied visual environmental costs are substantial.

Keywords: Housing prices; environment; wind farms; infrastructure (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q R (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-env, nep-res and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (14)

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http://cep.lse.ac.uk/pubs/download/sercdp0159.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Gone with the wind: Valuing the visual impacts of wind turbines through house prices (2015)
Working Paper: Gone with the wind: valuing the visual impacts of wind turbines through house prices (2015)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cep:sercdp:0159

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