"When Your View Goes Up in Flames: Effect of Wildfires on Property Values

Cloé Garnache, Assistant Professor, Department of Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics at Michigan State University, will present “When Your View Goes Up In Flames: Effect of Wildfires on Property Values” on Friday, November 3rd from 10:30am-12:00pm in Room 250A, Agricultural Administration (2120 Fyffe Road, Columbus, OH 43210).

Abstract: 
Property located near the wilderness often benefit from scenic vistas and other amenities such as recreation opportunities nearby.  However, proximity to the wilderness may also come with disamenities caused by wildfires such as view of a burn scar, local air pollution, and risk of wildfire damage.  Using a unique data set of sales transactions spanning the entire Los Angeles and San Diego Basins between 2000 and 2015, combined with detailed wildfire characteristics, we estimate the effect of burn scar view on poperty values in a large and rapidly growing urban area.  Our identification strategy matches treated properties with a burn scar view.  To tease out the effect of burn scar view from burn scar proximity, we estimate a difference-in-differences model for different distances to the burn scar, holding burn scar view constant.