American Economic Review Vol. 98 No. 3 2008

Estimates of the Impact of Crime Risk on Property Values from Megan's Laws

Leigh Linden¹; Jonah E. Rockoff²

¹ Economics Department and School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027. · ² Finance and Economics Department, Columbia Business School, New York, NY 10027.

Abstract

We estimate the willingness to pay for reductions in crime risk using the location and move-in dates of sex offenders. We find significant effects of sex offenders' locations that are geographically localized. House prices within 0.1 miles of a sex offender fall by 4 percent on average. We then use this finding to estimate the costs to victims of sexual offenses, and find costs of over $1 million per victim—far greater than previous estimates. However, we cannot reject the alternative hypotheses that individuals overestimate risks posed by offenders or that living near an offender poses significant costs exclusive of crime risk.

DOI

10.1257/aer.98.3.1103

Volume

98

Issue

3

Pages

1103-1127

Language

en

Sources

crossref openalex bibtex:phds-export.bib

Cite

APA 7 MLA 9 Chicago (author–date) Harvard Elsevier Harvard (JFE, JBF…) The Accounting Review Academy of Management American Marketing Association INFORMS (Management Science) Copy citation Copied ✓