The selection and quantile treatment effects on the economic returns of green buildings

Abstract

This paper adds a fresh perspective on the economic returns of green buildings using Singapore housing data. It estimates both the conditional and unconditional quantile treatment effects, by applying a recent econometric theory that explicitly recognizes and addresses the fundamental difference between the two types of quantile effects. The theory exploits selection on observables, which is widely accepted and commonly handled through one of two propensity score methods in the green building literature. The research finds that inverse probability weighting outperforms the other and adopts it to estimate the quantile effects, after evaluations including a comparison between the conditional and unconditional mean effects. Green buildings' premium is significant but varies notably across housing price quantiles. The treatment effect estimates for the conditional price distribution exhibit a hump shape, but the estimates for the marginal distribution display an upward trend. The conditional and unconditional quantile treatment effects both provide useful information for research, policy, and practice. The results indicate that the incentive for going green and the need for government intervention are both non-uniform.