Progress 04/01/21 to 03/31/24
Outputs
Target Audience:Target audiences reached during this reporting period include academic audiences, policymakers and the general public. We reached academic audiencesthrough academic presentations at University of California, Berkeley, University of Alaska, Anchorage, and the annual conference of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, through two published academic papers ("Risk Disclosure and Home Prices: Evidence from California Wildfire Hazard Zones" and "The Distributional Incidence of Wildfire Hazard in the Western United States"), and through two Resources for the Future working papers ("Risk Disclosure and Home Prices: Evidence from California Wildfire Hazard Zones" and "Sorting over Wildfire Hazard").We reached policymakers and the general publicthrough an RFF blog post, and a podcast in which Dr. Ma discussed findings from our paper on risk disclosure and home prices. Changes/Problems:
Nothing Reported
What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?The paper written and published under goal 1 included a junior co-author, RFF Research Analyst Molly Robertson. Papers written under goals 2 and 3 include as a co-authors a recent PhD, Connor Lennon.RFF Research Analyst Emily Joiner is included as a co-author on the second paper written under goals 2 and 3. Robertson, Lennon and Joiner eachplayed significant rolesin assembling and analyzing the data sets used in the project. Robertson contributed to writing the paper written under goal 1, and Joiner and Lennon each also contributed to writing the second paper written under goals 2 and 3. Joiner led writing of an RFF blog post related to the first paper written under goals 2 and 3. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?We have disseminated results through two academic articles and a public working paper, presentations in academic seminars and seminars and to congressional and agency staff, outreach to the media, and public-facing communications products (blog posts, podcasts). We will perform additional outreach related to the "sorting" paper (the second paper written under goals 2 and 3) upon its publication in an academic journal. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?
Nothing Reported
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
Under goal 1, we produced a manuscript, published in Environmental Research Letters, that uses Zillow ZTRAX data and US Census data to analyze how wildfire hazard is distributed across the population of the western US. Ouranalysis found that there is substantial heterogeneity in household demographics and property values within high wildfire hazard areas, but that high property value homesare disproportionately likely to be in high hazard areas, as are high income households.However, because many high-value high wildfire hazard properties are concentrated in high density areas, most of the high wildfire hazard area in the western US is sparsely populated and comprises mainly relatively low-value properties. Under goals 2 and 3, we produced two manuscripts. The first is published in Land Economics, and the second has recently been released as a Resources for the Future working paper. In the first paper, we studied how wildfire hazard disclosure affects home prices in California. We found that between 2015 and 2022, homes facing disclosure requirements in Californiasold for approximately 4.3% less than nearby homes that did not. This finding highlights the use of disclosure requirements for ensuring that risks are reflected in housing markets. In the second paper, we used a similar strategy, which also relies on disclosure requirement boundaries in California, to study household sorting over wildfire hazard in California. In this paper, we again found that households are averse to fire hazard in areas where disclosure is required. Moreover, we found that aversion is increasing in income, which suggests that over time lower-income households may replace high income households in high-hazard areas, raising concerns about distributional justice. This manuscript will be submitted to a peer-reviewedenvironmental economics journal.
Publications
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2024
Citation:
Ma, L., Walls, M., Wibbenmeyer, M., & Lennon, C. (2024). Risk Disclosure and Home Prices: Evidence from California Wildfire Hazard Zones. Land Economics, 100(1), 6-21.
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2022
Citation:
Wibbenmeyer, M., & Robertson, M. (2022). The Distributional Incidence of Wildfire Hazard in the Western United States. Environmental Research Letters, 17(6), 064031.
- Type:
Other
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2024
Citation:
Ma, L., Wibbenmeyer, M., Joiner, E., Lennon, C., & Walls, M. (2024) Sorting over Wildfire Hazard. Resources for the Future Working Paper 24-05.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2023
Citation:
Wibbenmeyer, M. (2023) Sorting over Wildfire Hazard. Presentation at the Annual Conference of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, June 1.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2023
Citation:
Wibbenmeyer, M. (2023) Sorting over Wildfire Hazard. Presentation at the 2023 University of Alaska, Anchorage Summer Workshop on Alaska's 21st Century Economy, June 16.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2023
Citation:
Wibbenmeyer, M. (2023) Sorting over Wildfire Hazard. Presentation to the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, University of California, Berkeley.
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Progress 04/01/22 to 03/31/23
Outputs
Target Audience: Target audiences reached during this reporting period include academic audiences (reached through academic presentations) and policymakersand thegeneral public (reached through press coverage related to our article, "The Distributional Incidence of Wildfire Hazard in the Western US", published in Environmental Research Letters). Changes/Problems:In 2021, Zillow announced the termination of the ZTRAX program, which we are relying on for data. Zillow allowed ZTRAX users to renew Data Use Agreements a final time in July 2021, and use of Zillow data will no longer be permitted after September 2023. As a result, it may no longer be feasible--due to timing of the program's termination--to publish separate papers estimating a household sorting model and a follow-up paper including policy analysis using model estimates. We will focus on completing the paper describing the household sorting model, and will include policy analysis in that paper where possible. In place of the third paper, which was to be focused on policy analysis, we have instead pursued a second paper--the "hedonic" paper--which also provides insights into how wildfire hazard affects households' choices about where to live. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided? The paper written and published under Goal 1 included a junior co-author, RFF Research Analyst Molly Robertson. Papers in progress under goals 2 and 3 include as co-authors a recent PhD, Connor Lennon, and RFF Research Analyst Emily Joiner. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?We have disseminated resultsthrough an academic article, presentations in academic seminars and to congressional and agency staff, and through outreach to the media. We will perform additional outreach related to the "hedonic" and "sorting" papers upon release of those papers in the Resources for the Future working paper seriesand as published journal articles. We will present the "sorting" paper in two academic conference presentations in June 2023. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?During the next reporting period, the team will work toward two goals. First, we will work toward publication and outreach related to our "hedonic" paper estimating the effects of wildfire hazard disclosure on property sales prices. Second, we will use the econometric strategy identified in this paper for separating the effects of wildfire hazard on home prices from the effects of correlated amentities to estimate a household sorting model describing effects of wildfire hazard on household residential location choices. Initial results from the "sorting" paper will be presented in two conference presentation during June 2023, and the paper will be submitted to a journal by September 2023.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
We have provided a broad-scale assessment of the distribution of wildfire hazard across households in the western US, which will provide policymakers and the public with critical context when assessing the fairness of various policy proposals aimed at reducing wildfire risk. Currently, we are working on two papers that contribute to understanding how wildfire risk affects household decisions of where to live. This research will inform housing policy in high wildfire hazard areas, including building codes, policy related to insurance costs, and policy affecting rates of development within and outside high risk areas. Goal 1 was completed in a previous performanceperiod. Overthe past performance period, we have discerned a viable econometric strategy for use in identifying effects of wildfire hazard, as distinct from correlated environmental amenities (e.g. forest cover),on home values. We used this strategy, which relies on discrete changes in disclosure requirements that occur across fire hazard zone boundaries in California, to estimate a "hedonic" model ofeffects of hazard disclosure on home price. Results indicatethat disclosure leads to an approximately 5% decline in home value at the boundary. A revision to our paper summarizing these results has been requested at Land Economics. In the past performance period, we have also begun work to estimate a household "sorting" model. This model will build on the identification strategy used in our hedonic paper to evaluate how household demographic characteristics influence preferences over neighborhood characteristics, including fire hazard. This work will be useful for informing expectations of how demographics within high fire hazard areas may change as the costs of living in these areas increase.
Publications
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Under Review
Year Published:
2023
Citation:
Ma, L., M. Walls, M. Wibbenmeyer, Joiner, E., and C. Lennon. Are Wildfire Risks Capitalized into Home Prices? Evidence from California.
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Progress 04/01/21 to 03/31/22
Outputs
Target Audience:We have reached academic and policy audiences through presentations of our research in seminars, congressional briefings, and meetings with agency staff. We will reach a broad audience of social scientistics studying wildfire and other natural hazards, policymakers, and the general public with our article "The Distributional Incidence of Wildfire Hazard in the Western US", which has been accepted for publication by Environmental Research Letters and will be released there in the coming months. In addition to being accepted for publication by ERL, ERL selected the article for press release;we anticipate that this will help the article reach a broader audience, which includes the general public. Changes/Problems:In 2021, Zillow announced the termination of the ZTRAX program, which we are relying on for data. Zillow allowed ZTRAX users to renew Data Use Agreements a final time in July 2021, and use of Zillow data will no longer be permitted after September 2023. As a result, it may no longer be feasible--due to timing of the program's termination--to publish separate papers estimating a household sorting model and a follow-up paper including policy analysis using model estimates. We will focus on completing the paper describing the household sorting model, and will include policy analysis in that paper where possible. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?The paper written and published under Goal 1 included a junior co-author, RFF Research Analyst Molly Robertson. As well, we have worked closely on progress toward Goal 2 with University of Oregon graduate student Connor Lennon. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?We have disseminated results through academic articles and throughpresentations in academic seminars and to congressional and agency staff. Our soon-to-be released Environmental Research Letters article was selected by ERL for press release, and the RFF communications team will do coordinated outreach to press outlets at the time of the article's release. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?During the next reporting period, the team will work toward two goals. First, we will estimate a "hedonic" model of the effect of wildfire hazard on property values, and we will write a paper describing the results. We will submit this paper to a joint special issue of the journals Land Economics and Journal of Housing Economics. Second, we will use theeconometric strategy identified in this paper for separating the effects of wildfire hazard on home prices from the effects of correlated amentities to estimate a household sorting model describing how wildfire hazard affects household location choices. A draft manuscript of this paper will be completed by January 2023. This paper was included in a conference session submitted to the 2023 American Economic Association annual conference, and if accepted we will present the paper there in January 2023.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
Under goal 1, we have completed a paper measuring how wildfire hazard is distributed across households in the western US. The paper uses property-level tax assessmente data from Zillow's ZTRAX database, as well as wildfire hazard data from the USFS and demographic data from the US Census, to measure how wildfire hazard is distributed across demographic groups in the western US. This paper has been accepted and will soon be published in Environmental Research Letters. Under goals 2 and 3, we have begun work toward estimating a household "sorting" model that will describe how wildfire hazard and costs of living in high wildfire hazard areas affect housing location choices. A significant econometric challenge in estimating this model is identifying the effect of wildfire hazard, as distinct from correlated environmental amenities (e.g. forest cover), on housing location choices. Our work thus far has focused on testing various econometric strategies.
Publications
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Awaiting Publication
Year Published:
2022
Citation:
Wibbenmeyer, M. and M. Robertson. The distributional incidence of wildfire hazard in the Western United States. Environmental Research Letters, forthcoming.
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