Sébastien Carrère, Chercheur Post-doctoral CNRS

Choosing Homes, Facing Hazards: Evidence on Environmental Risk, their Perception and Location Decisions

Mardi 3 février 2026, Sébastien Carrère, Chercheur Post-doctoral CNRS

Résumé : Exposure to environmental risks is usually taken into account in the study of residential location choices through objective exposure. This paper shows that perceptions play a central and heterogeneous role in residential decisions. Using an original geocoded survey of 1,869 individuals in France, we combine subjective perceptions of multiple environmental risks and amenities (air pollution, noise, floods, clay risk, green spaces) with fine-scale objective exposure measures. We estimate revealed-preference discrete choice models, including hybrid choice models that explicitly account for latent risk perceptions.By jointly modeling multiple environmental risks and amenities rather than considering them in isolation, we show that residential choices reflect simultaneous trade-offs across dimensions. Moreover, disentangling objective exposure from subjective perception helps explain mixed findings in the literature and highlights the role of risk awareness and information in shaping residential sorting. We find that flood risk strongly deters residential choice regardless of perception, while proximity to green spaces is broadly valued. In contrast, air pollution and noise exposure only affect location choices among individuals who perceive these risks as salient. Objective exposure alone has little effect for these two risks. Strikingly, clay shrinkage–swelling risk, despite its major economic costs, does not influence residential choice, likely reflecting its low visibility, long-term nature, and limited salience for households.
 

Le séminaire a lieu à 13h00 en salle 227.