Shale Gas Development and Property Values: Differences Across Drinking Water Sources

Lucija Muehlenbachs, Elisheba Spiller and Christopher Timmins

No 12-14, Working Papers from Duke University, Department of Economics

Abstract: While shale gas development can result in rapid local economic development, negative externalities associated with the process may adversely affect the prices of nearby homes. We utilize a triple-difference estimator and exploit the public water service area boundary in Washington County, Pennsylvania to identify the housing capitalization of groundwater risk, differentiating it from other externalities, lease payments to homeowners, and local economic development. We find that proximity to wells increases housing values, though risks to groundwater fully offset those gains. By itself, groundwater risk reduces property values by up to 24 percent.

Keywords: shale gas; property values; hedonic models; groundwater; triple difference estimator (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q4 Q53 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 39
Date: 2012
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ene and nep-ure
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (29)

Downloads: (external link)
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2149612 main text

Related works:
Working Paper: Shale Gas Development and Property Values: Differences across Drinking Water Sources (2012)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:duk:dukeec:12-14

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from Duke University, Department of Economics Department of Economics Duke University 213 Social Sciences Building Box 90097 Durham, NC 27708-0097.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Department of Economics Webmaster ().