Hedonic Housing Prices and Agricultural Pollution: An Empirical Investigation on Semiparametric Models

The objective of this paper is to assess the impact on property values of agricultural pollution using alternative semiparametric hedonic price models. The proposed model specifications are made up of two parts: a partially linear component for house characteristics and a non (semi) parametric form to represent the non linear influence of agricultural pollution. A general-to-specific search procedure is adopted to select the best model specification. An application of theses parametric models to rural townships indicates that pollution resulting on livestock operations have a significant nonlinear impact on house prices.