Diego S. Cardoso’s research while affiliated with Purdue University West Lafayette and other places

What is this page?


This page lists works of an author who doesn't have a ResearchGate profile or hasn't added the works to their profile yet. It is automatically generated from public (personal) data to further our legitimate goal of comprehensive and accurate scientific recordkeeping. If you are this author and want this page removed, please let us know.

Publications (3)


Spatial Heterogeneity in Hedonic Price Effects for Lake Water Quality
  • Article

July 2023

·

28 Reads

·

1 Citation

Land Economics

Kristen Swedberg

·

Diego S. Cardoso

·

·

[...]

·

Stephen Polasky

Valuing water quality in the United States using a national dataset on property values

April 2023

·

75 Reads

·

13 Citations

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

High-quality water resources provide a wide range of benefits, but the value of water quality is often not fully represented in environmental policy decisions, due in large part to an absence of water quality valuation estimates at large, policy relevant scales. Using data on property values with nationwide coverage across the contiguous United States, we estimate the benefits of lake water quality as measured through capitalization in housing markets. We find compelling evidence that homeowners place a premium on improved water quality. This premium is largest for lakefront property and decays with distance from the waterbody. In aggregate, we estimate that 10% improvement of water quality for the contiguous United States has a value of $6 to 9 billion to property owners. This study provides credible evidence for policymakers to incorporate lake water quality value estimates in environmental decision-making.


U.S. price indexes and income distribution over time. Top panel: monthly price (U.S. city average, all urban consumers, seasonally adjusted) for all consumer goods, electricity, and water and sewer. Series begins in December 1997 (=100). Water and sewer price index includes trash collection. Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Bottom panel: Share of aggregate income received by each fifth of households in 1997 and 2016. Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Survey, Annual Social and Economic Supplements.
Proportion of households above affordability threshold for essential water and sewer expenditure as a share of income, based on varying degrees of income data resolution.
Proportion of households above affordability threshold for water and sewer expenditure as a share of income, based on varying levels of daily per capita consumption (in gallons per capita‐day).
Geographic distribution of water affordability within regions. Shaded colors show the percentage of households within each county (in a) and census block group (in b–e) that have combined water and sewer bills (CWSBs) above 4.5% of annual household income. CWSBs are calculated at the essential consumption level of 50 gallons per person‐day.
Geographic distribution of water affordability in block groups within urban areas. Results are presented for Atlanta, GA (DeKalb and Fulton counties) and Chicago, IL (Cook county). Shaded colors show the percentage of households within each Census block group that have combined water and sewer bills (CWSBs) above 4.5% of annual household income. CWSBs are calculated at the essential consumption level of 50 gallons per person‐day.

+1

Water Affordability in the United States
  • Article
  • Publisher preview available

December 2022

·

82 Reads

·

26 Citations

In the US, the cost of water and wastewater services is rising three‐times faster than inflation. Over the next 20–25 years, required investments in water infrastructure are estimated to exceed $1 trillion, further increasing service costs. Combined with stagnating income levels, especially for poor households, increased costs will likely aggravate water affordability issues. Here, we document the extent of water affordability concerns in the US across income, geography, and race. We find that 10% of households face water affordability concerns, defined as expenditures on essential water and sewer services greater than 4.5% of annual household income. Households in the lowest income decile pay on average 6.8% of their annual income on water and sewer service. Our estimates are based on a large‐scale data set on water and sewer rates matched with Census block‐group‐level socioeconomic characteristics and covering approximately 45% of the US population. We demonstrate that using median household income at the county level drastically understates the extent of the water affordability problem. Additionally, we find that the number of households facing affordability concerns is positively associated with the proportion of black residents and negatively associated with Hispanic residents even after conditioning on prices and poverty levels. Lastly, we show that self‐sufficient water affordability policies that provide a lump‐sum rebate to low‐income households and are paid for by income taxes redistribute the burden borne by low‐income customers with fewer unintended consequences for non‐essential consumption than policies that change marginal incentives for water and sewer consumption.

View access options

Citations (3)


... Contributors to this article have used ZTRAX data to estimate: the cost of land acquisitions for conservation purposes (Nolte 2020); property value effects of national parks and historic sites (Zabel, Nolte and Paterson 2024); the benefits of lake water quality (Mamun et al. 2023;Swedberg et al. 2024); the effects of water markets on agricultural land values (Chaudhry, Fairbanks and Nolte 2024); the cost of hazardous chemical releases and the benefits of subsequent cleanups Guignet et al. 2024); the risk of flood damage to residential homes (Gourevitch et al. 2023); the effects of flood insurance policies (Hennighausen et al. 2024;Pollack et al. 2024); and property value impacts of critical habitat under the U.S. Endangered Species Act (Mamun, Nelson and Nolte 2024). Through this work, we have identified common problems of working with large-scale property data, and experimented with potential solutions in the following areas: ...

Reference:

Data Practices for Studying the Impacts of Environmental Amenities and Hazards with Nationwide Property Data
Spatial Heterogeneity in Hedonic Price Effects for Lake Water Quality
  • Citing Article
  • July 2023

Land Economics

... Exposure to contaminated waters through recreation can lead to illnesses; an estimated 90 million recreational-waterborne illnesses occur each year in the United States (4). In addition, degraded water quality can adversely affect property values adjacent to impaired waterbodies (5,6) and individual wellbeing (7). Therefore, there is an urgent need to better understand sources, fate, and transport of pathogen pollution in surface waters. ...

Valuing water quality in the United States using a national dataset on property values
  • Citing Article
  • April 2023

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

... Most studies of water affordability consider simply water bills as the numerator of the affordability index, the most apparent financial recurrent expenditure associated with water consumption, whether basic (García-Valiñas et al., 2010a;Sebri, 2015), actual (Mack and Wrase, 2017), or hypothetical (Beard and Mitlin, 2021;Cardoso and Wichman, 2022). The bill includes the amount directly associated with the water service, but it can also consider other costs, such as those related to sewage collection, wastewater treatment, infrastructure fees, subsidies, and lifelines (Goddard et al., 2022). ...

Water Affordability in the United States