Toke Emil Panduro

The Vindication of Don Quixote: The Impact of Noise and Visual Pollution from Wind Turbines

In this article we quantify the marginal external effects of nearby land-based wind turbines on property prices. We succeed in separating the effect of noise and visual pollution from wind turbines. This is achieved by using a dataset consisting of 12,640 traded residential properties located within 2,500 meters of a turbine sold in the period 2000–2011. Our results show that wind turbines have a significant negative impact on the price schedule of neighboring residential properties. Visual pollution reduces the residential sales price by up to about 3%, while noise pollution reduces the price between 3% and 7%. (JEL Q18, Q38)

Adaption to Extreme Rainfall with Open Urban Drainage System: An Integrated Hydrological Cost-Benefit Analysis

This paper presents a cross-disciplinary framework for assessment of climate change adaptation to increased precipitation extremes considering pluvial flood risk as well as additional environmental services provided by some of the adaptation options. The ability of adaptation alternatives to cope with extreme rainfalls is evaluated using a quantitative flood risk approach based on urban inundation modeling and socio-economic analysis of corresponding costs and benefits. A hedonic valuation model is applied to capture the local economic gains or losses from more water bodies in green areas. The framework was applied to the northern part of the city of Aarhus, Denmark. We investigated four adaptation strategies that encompassed laissez-faire, larger sewer pipes, local infiltration units, and open drainage system in the urban green structure. We found that when taking into account environmental amenity effects, an integration of open drainage basins in urban recreational areas is likely the best adaptation strategy, followed by pipe enlargement and local infiltration strategies. All three were improvements compared to the fourth strategy of no measures taken.

An Alternative to the Standard Spatial Econometric Approaches in Hedonic House Price Models

Omitted, misspecified, or mismeasured spatially varying characteristics are a cause for concern in hedonic house price models. Spatial econometrics or spatial fixed effects have become popular ways of addressing these concerns. We discuss the limitations of standard spatial approaches to hedonic modeling and demonstrate the spatial generalized additive model as an alternative. Parameter estimates for several spatially varying regressors are shown to be sensitive to the scale of the fixed effects and bandwidth dimension used to control for omitted variables. This sensitivity reflects the uncertainty associated with the estimates when the appropriate spatial scale of the controls is unknown. (JEL Q51, Q52)

Verification of flood damage modelling using insurance data

This paper presents the results of an analysis using insurance data for damage description and risk model verification, based on data from a Danish case. The results show that simple, local statistics of rainfall are not able to describe the variation in individual cost per claim, but are, however, feasible for modelling the overall cost per day. The study also shows that in combining the insurance and regional data it is possible to establish clear relationships between occurrences of claims and hazard maps. In particular, the results indicate that with improvements to data collection and analysis, improved prediction of damage costs will be possible, for example based also on socioeconomic variables. Furthermore, the paper concludes that more collaboration between scientific research and insurance agencies is needed to improve inundation modelling and economic assessments for urban drainage designs.