This study will use data from the American Community Survey (ACS), American Housing Survey (AHS), and Decennial Censuses to examine the impact of eminent domain takings decisions on housing values in geographic areas affected by those decisions. Most of the empirical work in this field focuses on the relationship between property rights and investment in developing countries. Theoretical arguments exist as to how takings decisions might, on net, either increase or decrease housing values, yet relevant empirical work using U.S. data focuses on producing area-level estimates of housing value changes. In contrast, this research will take advantage of restricted-use household-level microdata to examine changes in individual housing values, producing more accurate estimates of the effects of takings decisions on housing values. This research will also assess alternative methods of imputing missing data in the AHS and assess the impact eminent domain law has on ACS and AHS data collection.
Daniel Chen