August 1, 2011
Something in the Water?
Testing for Groundwater Quality Information in the Housing Market
Patrick McLaughlin
Senior Research Fellow
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To speak with a scholar or learn more on this topic, visit our contact page.I test the level of information regarding possible groundwater contamination in the residential real estate market in Washington County, Minnesota. An approximately seven square-mile trichloroethylene plume has affected hundreds of households’ water supplies since at least 1988 in the region. I find that homeowners were initially well-informed by market forces, but were later somewhat misinformed by government actions regarding the potential of water contamination from the plume. A disclosure law passed in 2003 may have added new, low-cost, and imperfect information to the market that could explain the change in informational awareness.