Green FireworksWe are excited to have won the International Association of Assessing Officers’ (IAAO) Bernard L. Barnard Outstanding Technical Essay Award. I couldn’t have been prouder to accept the award on our behalf at the awards luncheon at the 80th Annual IAAO Conference on August 25. I was lucky to be the lead on this paper with my knowledgeable Greenfield Advisors colleagues and co-authors, Abigail Mooney and Dr. John A. Kilpatrick.

Our essay, “Do survey results systematically differ from hedonic regression results? Evidence from a residential property meta-analysis,”  published in the Journal of Real Estate Literature (Volume 21, Number 2, 2013), was a group effort that drew on the decades of expertise between the three of us.

Here is the abstract from our paper:

In this paper, we evaluate the effect of environmental contamination situations on residential property values. Using the meta-analysis technique, conclusions are drawn about the effect of location, type of study conducted, empirical technique used, and economic conditions on various outcomes. Using observations extracted from 40 peer-reviewed articles, meta-regression analysis is used to identify the factors that explain variation in marginal willingness to pay for environmental amenities and disamenities as a percentage of the average unimpaired value of local residential properties. Our findings suggest that relatively similar property value diminution conclusions are obtained regardless of the methodological approach employed. Additionally, we find no evidence of ‘‘publication bias’’ in our results.

This award is presented to the authors of the best article or essay on technical innovations in assessment or property tax administration. As cliché as it sounds, it was an honor for us just to be nominated with so many other great papers written by other stalwarts of our industry. We were proud to be nominated next to you. I was on a speaking tour in Scotland just a few days earlier discussing fracking, so winning this award capped a whirlwind couple of weeks for me.

Thank you to the IAOO and to my co-authors. We look forward to continuing to publish our work and to educate property tax professionals.