Real Estate Value Impacts from Fracking : Industry Response and Proper Analytical Techniques

In this article, we discuss how fracking can affect housing prices in both positive and negative ways. We then critique several recent papers that use hedonic regression to analyze the effect of fracking on house prices and conclude that fracking has an unambiguously negative affect on housing prices. We identify serious methodological problems and data shortcomings in these studies; and discuss how to correct these problems and shortcomings. We conclude that much more research into the effects of fracking on real estate prices and values is needed before this issue is resolved