Housing land transaction data and structural econometric estimation of preference parameters for urban economic simulation models

Abstract

This paper describes a dataset of 6284 land transactions prices and plot surfaces in 3 medium-sized cities in France (Besançon, Dijon and Brest). The dataset includes road accessibility as obtained from a minimization algorithm, and the amount of green space available to households in the neighborhood of the transactions, as evaluated from a land cover dataset. Further to the data presentation, the paper describes how these variables can be used to estimate the non-observable parameters of a residential choice function explicitly derived from a microeconomic model. The estimates are used by Caruso et al. (2015) to run a calibrated microeconomic urban growth simulation model where households are assumed to trade-off accessibility and local green space amenities.