Crime and House Price Effects: A new approach to evaluating the welfare impacts of amenities and disamenities
Presented by Professor Chris Timms (Duke University)
What is the true cost of violent crime? If we can estimate the monetoary value of reductions in quality of life, policy makers will be better informed about how much society should invest in reducing crime.
Synopsis: Since the publication of Rosen's "Hedonic Prices and Implicit Markets", property value hedonics has become the workhorse model for valuing local public goods and amenities. However, problems in estimating the second stage of Rosen's procedure has led researchers away from estimating marginal willingness-to-pay functions, relying instead on the first-stage hedonic price function. In this seminar, Professor Timmins will propose a new econometric procedure to recover the marginal willingness-to-pay function while remaining computationally light and easy to implement. The method is applied to data on violent crime rates in Los Angeles and San Francisco.
Chris Timmins is currently Professor of Economics in the Department of Economics, Duke University and formerly Professor of Economics, Department of Economics, Yale University. He is an NBER Research Associate, Co-Editor of the Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, and a member of the Board of Editors of the American Economic Review. He has published in leading urban and environmental economics journals, and in the world's most elite mainstream economics journals including Econometrica and Economic Journal.
This event is free to all members, but places are limited so you must register to attend. If you would lke to attend this event please contact gwilym.pryce@glasgow.ac.uk
