Valuing the Built Environment: Gis and House Price Analysis

This book critically asseses 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. This volume explores hedonic house price models within a a geographical rather than purely economic context. Whereas these models have previously been conceptualised as economical, they are here re-evaluated by exploring how the spatial aspect of housing markets can be incorporated. By doing so, he re-evaluates the microeconomic theory of housing markets and concludes that only by treating housing markets 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.