Donato Scognamiglio

University of Bern | UniBe · Institute of Financial Management

In some applications of supervised machine learning, it is desirable to trade model complexity with greater interpretability for some covariates while letting other covariates remain a “black box”. An important example is hedonic property valuation modeling, where machine learning techniques typically improve predictive accuracy, but are too opaque...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the accuracy and volatility of different methods for estimating and updating hedonic valuation models. Design/methodology/approach The authors apply six estimation methods (linear least squares, robust regression, mixed-effects regression, random forests, gradient boosting and neural networks)...

A house is a bundle of land and improvements, with the weights of the two components varying both over time and across locations. We capture the land intensity or “leverage” of a property by measuring the ratio of land to total value. This is accomplished using transactions data for single-family homes in Switzerland over the period 1978 to 2008. W...

In contrast to many other countries, Switzerland generally has not seen soaring house prices in the 2000s and house prices have only recently started to diminish slightly. Also, Swiss authorities do not engage in trying to increase the homeownership rate much above its current level. This paper presents the main aspects of housing policy and financ...

In contrast to many other countries, Switzerland generally has not seen soaring house prices in the 2000s and house prices have only recently started to diminish slightly. Also, Swiss authorities do not engage in trying to increase the homeownership rate much above its current level. In this paper, we present the main aspects of housing policy and...

In contrast to many other countries, Switzerland generally has not seen soaring house prices in the 2000s and house prices have only recently started to diminish slightly. Also, Swiss authorities do not engage in trying to increase the homeownership rate much above its current relatively low level of 37.5%. In this paper, we present the main aspect...

The measurement of house price movements is a vital topic from both academic and practical perspectives and hence has been the focus of much research. There is almost unanimous consensus in the literature that house price indexes should control for the quality of properties; the most widely used methods to attain this aim are the hedonic and repeat...

The measurement of house price movements is a vital topic from both academic and practical perspectives and hence has been the focus of much research. There is almost unanimous consensus in the literature that house price indexes should control for the quality of properties; the most widely used methods to attain this aim are the hedonic and repeat...