Pipeline Incidents and Property Values: A Nationwide Hedonic Analysis

Abstract

Economic impacts of energy infrastructure incidents have been a focus of attention, especially since the rapid pipeline expansion due to the domestic shale oil and gas boom. While previous studies focus on individual pipeline incidents, we provide the first nationwide assessment of pipeline incidents’ impacts on housing prices using data from 864 gas distribution pipeline incidents and 17 million property transactions from 2010 to 2020. A difference-in-differences analysis finds that a pipeline incident decreases housing prices by 4% -- 6% on average. We explore the heterogeneous impacts of incidents with different characteristics. These heterogeneous impacts can potentially explain conflicting results from previous studies.

Keywords: Pipeline, Hazardous Materials, Housing Values, Hedonics, Difference-in-differences