Danny Ben-shahar (p), Roni Golan, Eyal Sulganik

Elias Oikarinen

The real estate market is recognized as a fertile ground for tax fraudsters. Specifically, reporting a price lower than the true transaction price in order to avoid tax payments is a prevalent fraud technique. We propose an empirical method for identifying housing transactions that are suspected of under-reporting. Based on all reported housing transactions in Israel over the period 1998–2015, we conclude that about 8% of the transactions are under-reported, with an average price report of 33% below the projected true price. Also, the likelihood to under-report is positively associated with the total tax liability and positively (negatively) associated with the crime rate in (the socioeconomic level of) the area in which the transaction occurs. Compared to single unit owners, real estate investors are less likely to engage in under-reporting. Our empirical approach may serve tax enforcement authorities in promoting tax collection in the real estate market.

Heidi Falkenbach , Elias Oikarinen (p)

Olarte Bacares

see the extended abstract

Carlos Augusto Olarte Bacares (p), Julien Brunel, Damien Sigaud

Danny Ben-shahar

Generally speaking, the less a transportation mode uses fossil fuels, the more it will be considered as an environmental friendly mode. Given its characteristics, railway transportation is considered as the most ecological transportation mode. Nonetheless, it does not mean that rail does not produce negative environmental externalities. One of its biggest externalities concerns the traffic noise on surrounding communities along the railway corridors, especially those located in urban zones where density is higher. In order to overcome this market failure, social costs of rail traffic noise should be calculated. Furthermore, rail traffic noise has direct impact on several areas like health or housing market among other areas.

In France, several reports and studies had developed different methods to estimate the socio-economic impact of the French railway traffic noise (Boiteux, 1994, Boiteux, 2001, Faburel et Maleyre, 2007, or Quinet, 2013). However, these researches present several limitations for the assessment of initiatives tackling railway noise. There are based on approximations or are using average data from other European countries or from other transport modes like road or air traffic (e. g. Sogel, 1990, Grosclaude and Soguel, 1994, Vainio, 1991, and Andersson et al., 2010, 2013).

In this context, the present research aims to determine the economic impact of rail noise in France on the housing market using the hedonic price method. This supposes that this article fills the noticeable lack of studies about the impact of railway traffic noise in France with original French data. For this purpose, this paper focuses to study two specific areas in the region of Paris that have three main characteristics: they are highly urbanized, they are subject of high level of rail traffic and precise data about the level of railway noise have been successfully collected.

Results suggest that regardless of the type of housing between apartments and houses, the average loss of value for all the properties exposed to rail noise is around 6% of their market value. Hence, the social cost of noise depends on traffic, density of urbanized perimeter and the number of housing affected by railway noise. In the case of these two Parisian urban areas, the costs of these two examples are very close to each other even if their characteristics in terms of density of housings and of rail traffic are different.