Valuing the Built Environment

Scott Orford breaks new ground in this volume by exploring hedonic house price models within a geographical rather than purely economic context. Whereas these models have previously been conceptualized as spatial, they are here reevaluated by exploring how the spatial aspect of housing markets can be incorporated.

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This book critically assesses the hedonic pricing technique as a method of imputing monetary values for the implicit attributes of housing. The hedonic technique is widely used, particularly in the US, but increasingly in Europe and Asia and has proved to yield important results and influence cost-benefit analysis. Scott Orford breaks new ground in this volume by exploring hedonic house price models within a geographical rather than purely economic context. He reevaluates the microeconomic theory of housing markets and concludes that only by treating housing market dynamics as inherently spatial can empirical results conform to the theory that underpins them. He also makes conclusions with respect to locational externalities, which have important implications as to how the built environment is valued.