Heterogeneous Impact of Soil Contamination on Farmland Prices in the Belgian Campine Region: Evidence from Unconditional Quantile Regressions

Ludo Peeters (), Eloi Schreurs () and Steven Passel ()
Additional contact information
Ludo Peeters: Hasselt University
Eloi Schreurs: Hasselt University
Steven Passel: Hasselt University

Environmental & Resource Economics, 2017, vol. 66, issue 1, No 7, 135-168

Abstract: Abstract We estimate a hedonic-pricing model using geo-coded farmland-transaction data from the Campine region, situated in the north-east of Belgium. Unlike previous hedonic studies, we use the method of unconditional quantile regression (Firpo et al., in Econometrica 77(3):953–973, 2009). An important advantage of this new method over the traditional conditional quantile regression (Koenker and Bassett, in Econometrica 46(1):33–50, 1978) is that it allows for the estimation of potentially heterogeneous effects of cadmium pollution along the entire (unconditional) distribution of farmland prices. Using a threshold specification of the hedonic-pricing model, we find evidence of a U-shaped valuation pattern, where cadmium pollution of the soil has a negative and significant impact on prices only in the middle range of the distribution, insofar as cadmium concentrations are above the regulatory standard of 2 parts per million for agricultural land. Results obtained from a probit model to classify land plots into different price segments further suggest that the heterogeneous impact of soil pollution on price can be directly related to the variety of amenities that farmland provides.

Keywords: Hedonic analysis; Cadmium pollution; Farmland prices; Unconditional quantile regression; Non-uniform valuation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (14)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10640-015-9945-6 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
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:kap:enreec:v:66:y:2017:i:1:d:10.1007_s10640-015-9945-6

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... al/journal/10640/PS2

DOI: 10.1007/s10640-015-9945-6

Access Statistics for this article

Environmental & Resource Economics is currently edited by Ian J. Bateman

More articles in Environmental & Resource Economics from Springer, European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().