Institutional effect on valuation - A study of the storm Gudrun's effect on forest real estate prices

Sammanfattning: In January 2005 southern Sweden along with Great Britain, Ireland and Denmark was hit by the storm Gudrun. Our study investigates the storm's effect on forest real estate prices and the effect of counter acting measures taken by institutions after the storm. In order to do this we have studied 63 private forest real estate transactions in Jönköping County during 2003-2006. Applying a hedonic regression model to capture the yearly price changes we find that in our sample there was a large price increase in 2006 and that the results for 2005 are in line with the expectation that the storm made large economic damage. A fully damaged forest would reduce the transaction value with roughly a third, the results are however insignificant given our sample size. In 2005 there was a large price increase in other parts of the country unaffected by the storm. For 2006 we see evidence that the clear price effect can be explained by a positive institutional effect, together with a convergence of price with unaffected areas.