Benefits and ancillary costs of natural infrastructure: Evidence from the New Jersey coast
- Resource Type
- Authors
- Steven J. Dundas
- Source
- Journal of Environmental Economics and Management. 85:62-80
- Subject
- Economics and Econometrics
business.industry
media_common.quotation_subject
05 social sciences
Environmental resource management
Climate change
Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law
Investment (macroeconomics)
Economic benefits
Doubly robust
Natural (archaeology)
0502 economics and business
Economics
Spatial variability
050202 agricultural economics & policy
Psychological resilience
Economic impact analysis
050207 economics
business
media_common
- Language
- ISSN
- 0095-0696
This paper empirically estimates the economic impacts of a large-scale public investment in natural infrastructure aimed at adapting to climate change and increasing coastal resilience. I utilize temporal and spatial variation in investment in dunes to provide a hedonic property value estimate of the economic benefits. I identify the net effect of treatment utilizing the doubly robust Oaxaca-Blinder estimator and show that coastal housing price increases attributable to constructed dunes are approximately 3.6%. A decomposition of the average impact suggests that the policy intervention generates ancillary costs related to impaired ocean views and privacy concerns that partially offset large protection benefits.