Does Bike Sharing Increase House Prices? Evidence From Micro-Level Data

Abstract

With unique datasets, this paper studies the externalities of bike sharing by examining house prices. We find that, for neighborhoods that are relatively far from subway stations, house prices increase with the usage intensity of shared bikes. This indicates a positive externality of bike sharing as a complement to the subway network. For neighborhoods near subway stations, however, house prices decrease with the intensity, especially if we exclude neighborhoods with a high-quality management service or if we look at the neighborhoods far from City Management Teams. This indicates a negative externality, which may be caused by the misplacement of shared bikes. Since the breakout of COVID-19, both the positive and negative externalities have become more capitalized into house prices; time-on-market also exhibits consistent patterns. This suggests that the profit sustainability of bike sharing has increased post the COVID-19 pandemic.