Does Hazardous Waste Matter? Evidence from the Housing Market and the Superfund Program

Michael Greenstone and Justin Gallagher

No 11790, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: Approximately $30 billion (2000$) has been spent on Superfund clean-ups of hazardous waste sites, and remediation efforts are incomplete at roughly half of the 1,500 Superfund sites. This study estimates the effect of Superfund clean-ups on local housing price appreciation. We compare housing price growth in the areas surrounding the first 400 hazardous waste sites to be cleaned up through the Superfund program to the areas surrounding the 290 sites that narrowly missed qualifying for these clean-ups. We cannot reject that the clean-ups had no effect on local housing price growth, nearly two decades after these sites became eligible for them. This finding is robust to a series of specification checks, including the application of a quasi-experimental regression discontinuity design based on knowledge of the selection rule. Overall, the preferred estimates suggest that the benefits of Superfund clean-ups as measured through the housing market are substantially lower than the $43 million mean cost of Superfund clean-ups.

JEL-codes: H4 I18 Q51 Q53 R2 R5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2005-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-pbe and nep-ure
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (33)

Published as Michael Greenstone & Justin Gallagher, 2008. "Does Hazardous Waste Matter? Evidence from the Housing Market and the Superfund Program," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 123(3), pages 951-1003, August.

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Journal Article: Does Hazardous Waste Matter? Evidence from the Housing Market and the Superfund Program (2008)
Working Paper: Does Hazardous Waste Matter? Evidence from the Housing Market and the Superfund Program (2006)
Working Paper: Does Hazardous Waste Matter? Evidence from the Housing Market and the Superfund Program (2005)
Working Paper: Does Hazardous Waste Matter? Evidence from the Housing Market and the Superfund Program (2005)
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