Social Factors Affecting Economic Welfare of the Residents around Nuclear Power Plants in Japan

This study examines several nuclear power plant sites in Japan by hedonic house rent analysis. As a result, for some plants, the neighboring houses are negatively evaluated by the residents, that is, their economic welfare get worse by living near the plants, whereas there are no or positive evaluations for the other plants. Meta analysis is carried out to examine social factors causing these differences – such as plant's attributes (operation years and past accidents) and host community's attributes (population density, change in employment and industrial structure, financial condition and change in social infrastructures).