Barrett A. Slade

An Empirical Study of Sample-Selection Bias in Indices of Commercial Real Estate

Real estate price indices based solely on samples of sold properties may not accurately represent the population of properties due to potential sample-selection bias. This study addresses this potential for sample-selection bias in the construction of commercial price indices within the context of the Phoenix area office market. The empirical analysis confirms the presence of sample-selection bias in the estimation of the total price equation. However, within this sample, the price indices generated after correcting for sample-selection bias do not appear significantly different from those that do not consider selectivity bias.

A Metropolitan Transaction‐Based Commercial Price Index: A Time‐Varying Parameter Approach

This study examines the usefulness of time-varying parameter techniques for constructing reliable transaction-based commercial price indices for metropolitan areas. Time-varying parameter techniques allow the implicit prices of differing quality characteristics to vary intertemporally, overcoming the potential bias imposed by holding implicit prices fixed and simply interpreting time dummy variables as in a conventional hedonic approach. This paper empirically investigates three time-varying parameter methods (Chained, Laspeyres, and Paasche) and considers the potential for sample selection bias. Precision measures are constructed to examine the reliability of the respective indices. Copyright Blackwell Publishers Ltd 2001.

Do Tax‐Deferred Exchanges Impact Purchase Price? Evidence from the Phoenix Apartment Market

Many authors have commented on the compliance risk associated with tax-deferred exchanges. However, no published studies explicitly address whether the risks associated with the exchange process impacts the price at which exchanged assets trade. Using a unique data set that separates buy and sell side transactions for non-direct exchanges, this study examines the price impact of tax-deferred exchanges on apartment transactions in the Phoenix, Arizona market. Consistent with the price pressure hypothesis originally developed by Scholes (1972) and Kraus and Stoll (1972), the data show that exchange participants pay an economically significant premium to acquire replacement assets. A conventional hedonic price index is generated to investigate the rational bounds of the exchange premium. While the impact of an exchange is large, the premium is within the rational bounds.

Housing Regulation, Externalities, and Residential Property Prices

This article examines the effects of quantity restrictions on residential property prices in the presence of neighborhood externalities. A Brigham Young University policy limiting students’ location choices provides a natural experiment for studying the externality and quantity restriction effects on property values. A flexible hedonic model is used to control for nonstudent population spatial sorting by type. The estimates show significant positive quantity restriction and student agglomeration effects on student housing prices. There are also significant differences in the negative student externality across nonstudent neighborhoods, with the quantity restriction reinforcing (offsetting) the student price premium (discount) at the boundary.

Big Box Stores and Urban Land Prices: Friend or Foe?

Using a spatial difference-in-differences research design, this paper examined the effect of a new Walmart store on nearby U.S. urban land prices and found that, within one quarter mile of a new Walmart store locale, land prices increased by almost 39% over the four-year development time period (from site negotiation to the store opening) compared with land located from one to three miles from the new store site. The analysis found that land prices increased almost geometrically over the development period as information leakage implied that a new store would actually be built and that demand for nearby land would increase. The positive effects were found to dissipate with distance from the new store, suggesting that the Walmart effect is highly localized. The analysis also found that supercenters, as opposed to discount stores, and commercial land sales, as opposed to residential land sales, were instrumental in driving the positive price effects. Also, robustness tests found a positive land price effect with other big-box stores, suggesting that the land price effect was not limited to Walmart stores, but in fact, was a big-box store effect. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved