Assessing Negative Externalities of Rural Abandoned Houses in South Korea: Insights from Discrete Choice Experiments

Seongyong Shin and Tae-Hwa Kim ()
Additional contact information
Seongyong Shin: Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, North Carolina State University, 2801 Founders Drive, Raleigh, NC 27695, USA
Tae-Hwa Kim: Department of Community Development, Kongju National University, Daehak-ro, Yesan-gun 32439, Chungcheongnam-do, Republic of Korea

Sustainability, 2024, vol. 16, issue 24, 1-26

Abstract: The proliferation of abandoned houses in rural South Korea poses significant challenges to sustainable rural development, driven by declining birth rates, aging populations, and urban migration. However, effective policy implementation is hindered by the lack of understanding of the negative externalities caused by abandoned houses. This study fills this gap by estimating the negative externalities associated with abandoned rural houses using discrete choice experiments. Surveys targeting individuals planning rural relocations and potential tourists considering rural stays were conducted to quantify the external costs. Our findings reveal that the marginal willingness to pay associated with abandoned houses is negative and decreases with an increasing number of abandoned houses nearby, both in the context of house purchases and rural stays. Extrapolating these results to the national level, we estimate the aggregate negative externalities value to be approximately 4.2 trillion KRW per year, highlighting significant negative externalities in rural areas nationwide. The implications of our analysis underscore the severity of negative externalities from abandoned houses, which may surpass the value of housing services, discourage migration, and prompt residents to leave rural communities, thus exacerbating the issue. Our study emphasizes the necessity for further research and policy interventions to address the negative externalities associated with abandoned rural houses, offering insights into the potential use of discrete choice experiments in similar contexts.

Keywords: rural abandoned houses; negative externalities; non-market valuation; discrete choice experiments; sustainable rural development (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/16/24/10877/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/16/24/10877/ (text/html)

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:gam:jsusta:v:16:y:2024:i:24:p:10877-:d:1542065

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().