Spenser J. Robinson

Central Michigan University | CMU · Departments of Finance/Law and Entrepreneurship

Drawing on a sample, of U.S. multi-family apartment and school data from across 45 U.S. Core Based Statistical Areas, this paper examines the capitalization of school quality into apartment rents. It makes three contributions. First, in the context of the geographically diverse data, results tend to be consistent with individual market analyses in...

This paper examines U.S. residential consumer willingness to pay for location efficiency, a normative advancement of new urbanism. Drawing on a national sample of multi-family housing data joined to measures of urban form and spatial structure, empirical models suggest three contributions to the literature. First, renters are willing to pay for gre...

In the United States and Canada, individual states and provinces control their consumer energy markets. Under the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) definitions the "market" for market-based GHG reporting is typically defined as the state or province that maintains regulatory control or the interconnected grid where consumption oc...

Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) measures continue to grow in both academic and industry relevance. This review focuses on the commercial real estate literature related to ESG measures. The environment section outlines the significant bodies of work on that area, which are well researched. Related work discussing literature on ISO 14000,...

The economic effect of climate hazard events varies by time and by location. This paper investigates how climate shocks to local property markets transmit to capital markets and provides evidence of the extent to which forward‐looking climate risk is capitalized into the public valuations of those property markets. We first quantify the exposure of...

Cities, their development, and growth in urban geography context have been well defined in developed economies. Also, the penetration of green buildings in developed economies has been significant over the last two decades. The cities’ development pattern in developing countries and penetration of green buildings have not yet been adequately define...

This paper examines the persistence of differentiated pricing in the multi-family housing related to eco-certification. In examining a sample of market rents for non-specialty, multi-family properties both across the U.S., as well as those areas that enjoy the highest concentrations of LEED certified apartments, we find rental premiums of 10.2% and...

JEL: R20, R31, R40

Using proprietary data from a large corporate relocation firm covering 2004-2014 this empirical case study examines the effects of housing equity, corporate relocation incentives, as well as economic, geographic, and demographic factors on employee mobility within the relocation framework. The corporate relocation dataset largely controls for poten...

This paper examines strategic motivations, processes and expectations for institutional real estate owners around sustainable improvements and eco-labelling in office buildings. A series of 33 industry interviews with senior representatives of institutional real estate owners (e.g. REITs, Pension Funds, Opportunity Funds, and Investment Managers) w...

Purpose This case study aims to appraise the financial benefits of green building construction in developing countries. The case study presents, green building's positive net present value (NPV) investment in real terms and potentially enhanced stock market returns at the firm level compared to competitors. Design/methodology/approach The case stu...

Urban growth and extensive construction in the cities of developing countries raise questions about environmental pollution and resource challenges, along with sustainable techniques to mitigate them. Research in developed economies has concluded that sustainable construction practices and certifications like Leadership in Energy and Environmental...

This paper shows Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certified hospitality properties exhibit increased expenses and earn lower net operating income (NOI) than non-certified buildings. ENERGY STAR certified properties demonstrate lower overall expenses than non-certified buildings with statistically neutral NOI effects. Using a cus...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether energy-efficient green buildings tend to provide net lease structures over gross lease ones. It then considers whether owners benefit by trading away operational savings in a net lease structure. Design/methodology/approach Empirical models of office leasing transactions in Sydney, Austra...

This paper reports on the development and potential implementation of a new green office building rating index intended for building owners and real estate office portfolio managers. It provides a market-driven green scoring method applicable to most US office buildings. The underlying index data draws from office tenant surveys and hedonic analysi...

This paper shows Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certified hospitality properties exhibit increased expenses and earn lower net operating income (NOI) than non-certified buildings. ENERGY STAR certified properties demonstrate lower overall expenses than non-certified buildings with statistically neutral NOI effects. Using a cus...

Large bodies of literature investigate the energy and resource impact of green buildings on consumers, environment , rent and society. However, little research exists that examines the habits and decision-making preferences of owners who operate and invest in these buildings. Industry interviews with senior-level representatives of U.S.-based insti...

Using a sample of CCIM designees and candidates in an experimental setting, this study examines the impact of broker signaling in commercial real estate transactions. It also explores the effect of certainty of closure in commercial real estate transactions. Findings suggest brokers are able to influence transaction pricing. Moreover, detailed anal...

In the hedonic analysis literature, there has been much discussion on the conditions of sale or the context, motivating factors, and contract specifics associated with real estate transactions. As conditions of sale are often present in commercial real estate transactions, the limited insight into their marginal price effects attenuates the effecti...

This article investigates how emerging real estate markets price information conveyed by voluntary environmental certification schemes. In addition to low incidence of green buildings, developing countries typically exhibit weaker environmental performance due to limited capacity to enforce existing regulation. Therefore, we exploit the role of int...

Where the hedonic analysis literature has explored a plethora of topics, it has not given focused attention to conditions of sale or the context, motivating factors, and contract specifics associated with real estate transactions. As conditions of sale are often present in commercial real estate transactions, the limited insight into their marginal...

This paper examines the impact of large scale ownership on commercial real estate sales and selling price premiums. It also examines whether Energy Star premiums found in the literature are a result of a signal for an ownership brand effect rather than the label itself. The results suggest that large scale owners generate significant market rental...

This research expands the traditional triple bottom line (people, profit, and planet) by splitting profit based on benefits from resource savings or productivity enhancements. In the context of corporate real estate, the suggested quadruple bottom line (PPPP) is defined as general environmental goals (planet), employees' productivity (people), the...

This paper uses lease level analysis to report on the effect of the presence of 15 green sustainable building features on office rents in an effort to unpack the independent impact of the bundle of attributes contained in green labels such as LEED. The results show that LEED conveys to the market the presence of attributes like superior air, effici...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine market microstructure differences in stock market quality for hospitality real estate investment trusts (REITs) during the pre- and post-financial crisis eras. It provides insight on different trading strategies based on the underlying liquidity and volatility of hospitality REITs as compared traditio...

This article investigates how emerging real estate markets price information conveyed by voluntary environmental certification schemes. In addition to low incidence of green buildings, developing countries typically exhibit weaker environmental performance due to limited capacity to enforce existing regulation. Therefore, we exploit the role of int...

In the hedonic analysis literature, there has been much discussion on the conditions of sale or the context, motivating factors, and contract specifics associated with real estate transactions. As conditions of sale are often present in commercial real estate transactions, the limited insight into their marginal price effects attenuates the effecti...

This article demonstrates the inclusion of understudied elements of comparison in a multiple-regression model using a national sample of commercial office building sales from 2002 to 2011. Where the elements of comparison tested are statistically significant predictors of price, the results suggest that practitioners might use the coefficient estim...

This study examines the topline performance of a cross-section of hotels in the United States from 2009 to 2013 to test whether eco-labeled (LEED or Energy Star, in particular) properties generated revenue performance premiums over noncertified hotels. In other words, does it pay to acquire these labels? Regressions included regional, class, chain...

This study analyzes the demand for green office building features among US office tenants. An on-line survey of a random sample of office tenants in 17 major US markets is employed, with 708 responses representing a 23% response rate. Tenants provided their perspective on green buildings and their stated willingness to pay for individual green feat...

Increasingly, researchers are recognizing the benefits of expanding research designs to include both quantitative and qualitative methods to gain deeper insight into the reasons behind various research phenomena. Entrepreneurial development of market oriented products can benefit from the use of both methods to gain an understanding of complex issu...

See under published title: A Commercial Real Estate matching method for return estimations

In this paper, we apply hedonic regression to estimate the grid adjustment factors for a national sample of commercial office properties. We demonstrate the viability of hedonic grid regression in commercial real estate. Several robustness tests are employed to test the reliability of the empirical results. We find that the hedonic approach yields...

This paper examines the topline performance of a cross-section of hotels in the United States from 2009-2013 to test whether green certified properties, LEED or Energy Star, generated revenue performance premiums over non-certified hotels. In other words, does it pay to be green? Regressions included regional, class, chain scale, size, and location...

The statistics, finance, and real estate literature regularly rely on propensity score matching techniques to balance samples of data where randomized treatment assignment is not possible. In the sustainable commercial real estate literature the technique has seen substantive use. To analyze price and rent premiums for green buildings, several stud...

Focusing on the voluntary LEED and ENERGY STAR environmental certification schemes in the United States, we investigate whether price premiums exist across all building value categories or are localized to specific value segments. We find that the largest value building segment does not demonstrate any price premiums, while the smallest value categ...

Starting with its founding in 1985, the American Real Estate Society (ARES) has a long and distinguished tradition of supporting and fostering innovation within the community of real estate research and practice. From its journals and support of research to its annual conference and doctoral seminar, the organization continues to advance its missio...

In this paper, we identify specific green building attributes important to tenants using a mixed- industry series of focus-groups in Chicago, Denver, Washington DC, and the San Francisco Bay Area. The focus groups reveal the relative importance of green office building attributes and further explore the qualitative reasons for those rankings. Reg...

In this paper, we examine the economic impact of a tightly clustered complex of hog barns, a type of concentrated animal feeding operation (CAFO) on residential property in a rural area near Benton, Kentucky. The operation creates noxious and offensive odors associated with swine-raising and waste disposal activities. Theory and practice indicate t...