Data Practices for Studying the Impacts of Environmental Amenities and Hazards with Nationwide Property Data

Abstract

<h3>Abstract</h3> We discuss data quality and modeling issues inherent in the use of nationwide property data to value environmental amenities. By example of ZTRAX, a U.S.-wide real estate database, we identify challenges and propose guidance for: (1) the identification of arm’s-length sales, (2) the geo-location of parcels and buildings, (3) temporal linkages between transaction, assessor, and parcel data, (4) the identification of property types, such as single-family homes and vacant lands, and (5) dealing with missing or mismeasured data for standard housing attributes. We review current practice and show that how researchers address these issues can meaningfully influence research findings.