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Urbanisation, environmental sustainability and property markets are intertwined. Consequently, studies on any of these three topics need to take the other two topics into consideration. By critically reviewing 33 hedonic pricing studies in 16 key journals in the urban studies and environmental policies areas, we summarise quantitative evidence on the price of environmental externalities resulting from China's urbanisation process. We find that Chinese residents are willing to pay more for the access to green space and waterbody as well as the treatment of urban pollution. The cost and benefit of these amenities and disamenities have already been capitalised in house prices. The central and local government in China can leverage market force to encourage, support and facilitate sustainable urban development and environmental protection, instead of directly intervening in the property market by using public resources. Meanwhile, the estimated hedonic price of Urban Green, Urban Blue and Urban Grey helps policymakers to understand the cost and benefit of their urban development decisions. Our review of the papers on Urban Green, Urban Blue and Urban Grey suggests that there have been promising and encouraging development in studies on all three topics in the last decade. The quality and quantity of hedonic price research has been improving notably. However, it is also clear that there is virtually no empirical evidence from the second- or third-tier cities, particularly, regarding Urban Green and Urban Blue investigations. The small number of existing hedonic studies is far from sufficient to draw reliable conclusions about the costs of environmental externality for cities that have not been studied. What works in first-tier cities may not hold elsewhere in China due to the large geographical variation in natural endowment, economic development status and local customs. There are many pieces that are missing from this big picture. More hedonic price studies are needed.

Experiential tourism has surged before the COVID-19 pandemic, and all signs are pointing out to a rapid increase postpandemic. However, it is no longer a question of whether to provide an experience or not, but rather which experience to provide. Travellers are demanding, and the forced pause in travel is fueling the concept of revenge travel but with consumers seeking unique experiences with nature as the center stage. The concept of glass igloo hotel (GIH) taps into the unique experience within a natural setting, offering guests the opportunity to reconnect with panoramic views of the natural surroundings. This research investigates consumers' willingness to pay (WTP) for such experience at a GIH. Results collected from 127 participants present hypothetical WTP which appears to be lower than actual rates published at some existing GIHs. Specific attributes sought after by guests in regards to the GIH experience were also investigated. The closeness to nature, view from the igloo, and proximity of the bathroom are particularly important. And while the igloo hotel experience offers the possibility to disconnect form the modern world, the availability of Wi-Fi was deemed important nevertheless. The research was conducted prior to the COVID-19 pandemic which may yet further influence the WTP for such an experience.

This paper identifies and models the effect of eight attributes that influence hotel room rents in India. These attributes are conceptually grouped into three factors: (1) site factors including the presence or absence of a “swimming pool,” “free breakfast,” and the “hotel capacity”; (2) situational factors including, “distance from the airport,” “weekend/weekday,” “city population,” “cost of living”; and (3) a reputation factor indicated by “star rating.” Our regression model uses secondary data collected from a hotel booking website for 570 hotels across 18 cities of India. The results indicate that six out of these eight variables namely, presence of swimming pool, free breakfast, hotel capacity, distance from the airport, city population, and hotel star rating have a significant impact on hotel room rents in India.

This chapter considers time-differentiated airport noise surcharges that occur in addition to general noise fees at an airport. In practice, an essential problem of such surcharges may consist of setting the price for a social policy goal, such as airport noise reduction, by shifting a number of critical flights away from sensitive times-of-day in the presence of an additional, competing economic policy goal in terms of fostering the network hub function and connectivity of that airport. In such a case, additional noise surcharges aim at balancing the socioeconomic noise costs against economic prosperity, to achieve a net benefit for society by inducing a particular airline scheduling behavior, such as shifting non-hub-relevant flights only. As a result, they differ from the well-known economic concepts for the internalization of externalities. We address this problem by offering a shift from an economic welfare view to a business administration perspective with the airlines as stakeholders, in order to describe the different rationales that need to be accounted for when searching for a pricing scheme that achieves one of the distinct steering effects in terms of airline scheduling behavior. In addition, we offer a tentative, generic guideline to determine the appropriate dimension of time-differentiated noise surcharges depending on the steering effect.

In this chapter, we describe how random utility maximization (RUM) discrete choice models are used to estimate the demand for commodity attributes in quality-differentiated goods. After presenting a conceptual overview, we focus specifically on the conditional logit model. We examine technical issues related to specification, interpretation, estimation, and policy use. We also discuss identification strategies for estimating the role of price and non-price attributes in preferences when product attributes are incompletely observed. We illustrate these concepts via a stylized application to new car purchases, in which our objective is to measure preferences for fuel economy.

Objective – The current biotechnology revolution has been associated with newly developed genetic modifications (GM) that offer new prospects for increasing agricultural productivity. This has stimulated a rapid adoption of GM corn hybrids by U.S. farmers. Yet, there is concern about the structure of competition among biotech firms that own patents over GM traits. This chapter evaluates the spatial differences in pricing of biotech corn hybrids, with a focus on the fringe versus core regions of the U.S. Corn Belt.

Methods – The analysis examines how local conditions and market concentrations affect the pricing of GM corn hybrids in different locations.

Results – We find evidence of more extensive subadditive pricing in the fringe region. We also examine how both own- and cross-market concentrations affect prices across regions. For GM hybrids, the results show that market power is generally more prevalent in the core region compared to the fringe.

Conclusions – The evidence shows that the pricing of GM corn hybrids varies across space. The observed pricing schemes benefit farmers more in the fringe than in the core region of the Corn Belt.