01337834

Component

Scholars have debated whether experts’ perception of risk differs systematically from that of the public, and if so whether expert opinion is more accurate. This paper examines whether experts and non-experts make different residential location decisions in response to ground-level ozone pollution, one of the byproducts of automobile transportation. Physicians are experts in the field of health, and thus may differ from their lay neighbors in their knowledge of and attitude toward pollution and its health risks. If so, it is possible that physicians value locations with cleaner air differently than their neighbors. This paper uses hedonic price models based on willingness to bear housing and commute burdens to examine the differential valuation of clean air by doctors and laypeople in the Los Angeles region between 1980 and 2000. It finds no evidence that doctors are more or less more willing than comparable lay residents to trade off time (analyzed using transportation data) or money in order to live in cleaner-air neighborhoods. The paper outlines several possible explanations for this result, and finds that the most likely is that the health risks of ozone pollution are perceived to be small enough by both experts and the lay population that ozone avoidance is largely drown out by the many other factors that go into housing decisions.

01329018

11-1087

English

20p

2011

Transportation Research Board 90th Annual Meeting

DVD

References (38) ; Tables (2)

Air pollution; Decision making; Environmental risk assessment; Housing; Residential location; Smog

Hedonic price method

Los Angeles (California)

Environment; Highways; I10: Economics and Administration; I15: Environment

Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting 2011 Paper #11-1087

TRIS, TRB

Feb 17 2011 5:40PM