# UPGRADE_REPORT — Scholarly upgrade of WP9 (v1.1 → v1.2, 2026-08-05)

Scope: literature and framing only. **No result, number, figure or table changed.**
Paper: 26 → **34 pages** (+31%); references: 32 → **64** (63 cited); new **Discussion**
section (§7). Critical pre-assessment in `PAPER_REVIEW.md`. Builds cleanly
(pdflatex + bibtex, zero errors/undefined citations).

## 1. New references (32), each verified before entry

Verification method: direct Crossref DOI lookup for 30 entries (metadata in the .bib
copied from the Crossref record); Mills (1967) and the two books confirmed via JSTOR
issue listing / publisher records ([Mills 1967 AER 57(2):197–210](https://www.jstor.org/stable/i331577),
[Alonso 1964](https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-the-history-of-economic-thought/article/abs/william-alonso-richard-muth-resources-for-the-future-and-the-founding-of-urban-economics/A1F19C2F841A0D0AA33D15F46918CFEA),
[Muth 1969](https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/recherches-economiques-de-louvain-louvain-economic-review/article/abs/rf-muth-cities-and-housing-the-spatial-pattern-of-urban-residential-land-use-chicago-and-london-the-university-of-chicago-press-1969-xxii-p-355-p-90/0AA8AA64AD2123A62CED306A63423327),
[Case–Shiller 1989 AER 79(1):125–137](https://econpapers.repec.org/RePEc:aea:aecrev:v:79:y:1989:i:1:p:125-37)).
The OpenAlex MCP connector was budget-limited, so Crossref's REST API was used instead.

**Urban spatial structure (motivates the gradient section, previously uncited):**
- `alonso1964location` — founding monocentric land-rent model.
- `muth1969cities` — housing version of the monocentric model.
- `mills1967aggregative` — the third leg of the Alonso–Muth–Mills tradition.
- `ahlfeldt2015density` — modern quantitative estimation of density/amenity gradients (Berlin Wall).

**Land value & the location share (external benchmark for the 30-pp headline):**
- `davis2007price` — U.S. residential land share ≈ 46%; direct macro counterpart.
- `knoll2017no` — land explains ~80% of global house-price growth since 1950.
- `albouy2016cities` — cross-city dispersion of land rents & amenity values.
- `cheshire1995price` — early land-price/amenity decomposition.

**Supply constraints / superstar cities (explains WHY premia disperse ×9):**
- `saiz2010geographic` — geographic supply constraints; Vancouver-type geography.
- `gyourko2013superstar` — superstar-city price dynamics; frames Vancouver/Toronto.

**House-price indices (paper claimed index relevance with zero index citations):**
- `bailey1963regression` — repeat-sales method origin.
- `case1989efficiency` — the index tradition + efficiency questions (also cited in Limitations).
- `hill2013hedonic` — authoritative survey of hedonic price indexes.

**Submarkets (the FSA design is a submarket argument):**
- `goodman1998housing` — market segmentation tests.
- `bourassa2003submarkets` — submarkets improve prediction; simple geography suffices.

**Spatial dependence, empirics (Moran's I had one 1950 citation):**
- `dubin1988estimation` — spatially autocorrelated errors distort hedonic inference.
- `basu1998analysis` — canonical measurement of residual spatial autocorrelation.
- `dube2013spatiotemporal` — Canadian spatio-temporal weights (Dubé & Legros).

**Capitalization theory (why a neighbourhood intercept is 'value' at all):**
- `tiebout1956pure` — sorting on local public goods.
- `oates1969effects` — first capitalization measurement.
- `roback1982wages` — spatial-equilibrium amenity capitalization.

**Hedonic identification:**
- `epple1987hedonic` — second-stage simultaneity; grounds our first-stage-only stance.

**List prices & microstructure (the paper's central data caveat, previously uncited):**
- `genesove2001loss` — sellers set list prices strategically (loss aversion).
- `han2015microstructure` — search/bargaining microstructure (Handbook chapter).
- `kiel2008location` — the '3L' structure/location decomposition framework.

**AVM / mass appraisal (grounds 'competitive with commercial AVMs'):**
- `clapp2003semiparametric` — location-value surface for automated valuation.
- `mccluskey2013prediction` — accuracy comparison across mass-appraisal model classes.

**Canadian evidence (was: one CMHC report):**
- `desrosiers1996shopping`, `desrosiers2002landscaping` — the Quebec City hedonic program.
- `haider2000effects` — spatial hedonics for Toronto.

**High-dimensional FE methodology:**
- `abowd1999high` — the AKM origin of the estimator lineage.
- `guimaraes2010simple` — the standard computational reference.

## 2. Sections expanded and how

| Section | Before | After |
|---|---|---|
| Introduction | 5 ¶, assertion-style gap | 6 ¶: stakes ¶ (housing wealth, assessment, land share), positioning vs. named literatures, **numbered 3-part contribution**, roadmap incl. §7 |
| Related Literature | 5 loose subsections, 32 refs | **7 thematic subsections**, each ending with an explicit *Gap:* statement; ~55 refs engaged |
| Data | unchanged | one grounding citation for the 1% trim |
| Methodology | unchanged equations | AKM lineage + computational refs added to the absorbing-LS paragraph |
| Results | **numbers/figures untouched** | 3 citation anchors only (bedrooms "textbook finding"; monocentric theory for the gradient; no text changes otherwise) |
| Robustness | **numbers untouched** | 2 citation anchors (spatial-dependence empirics; AVM accuracy claim now sourced) |
| **Discussion (NEW §7)** | — | 6 subsections: magnitudes vs. literature (land share, elasticities, Moran, quantiles, AVM accuracy); **points of tension**; implications (assessment, indices, AVM, policy); Limitations (5, consolidated); Future work |
| Conclusion | 3 ¶ incl. limitations | limitations moved to §7; added an explicit "what the reading is" paragraph; no overselling (contribution restated with the same numbers) |

## 3. Claims flagged for your verification

1. **"First listing-level structure-vs-location decomposition spanning the entire
   Canadian market" (intro, contribution 1).** I softened it with "(to our knowledge)",
   and the Canadian-literature subsection now documents what exists (metropolitan-scale
   work). Please confirm you are comfortable with the novelty claim.
2. **Bathroom premium "at the upper end of published estimates" (Discussion §7.1).**
   Directionally supported by Sirmans et al.'s tabulations, but I did not run a formal
   meta-comparison. Soften to "within the range" if you prefer.
3. **AVM accuracy comparison.** The paper now cites McCluskey et al. (2013) and Clapp
   (2003) instead of claiming an unsourced comparison with "commercial" AVMs. If you
   have an IAAO-ratio-standard source you prefer, it slots in naturally there.
4. **Half-bath negative coefficient interpretation** remains conjectural in Results
   (unchanged text). Consider adding "we conjecture" if a referee pushes.

## 4. Literature that potentially contradicts the paper

- **`bourassa2003submarkets` / `goodman1998housing`** — argue implicit prices (slopes),
  not just intercepts, vary across submarkets. The paper's own provincial heterogeneity
  (elasticity 0.49–0.66) partially *confirms* this, so the grand model's pooled slopes
  are an approximation. Now acknowledged explicitly in §7.2 ("Points of tension").
- **`kuminoff2010which`** — hedonic estimates can be specification-fragile; addressed
  via the robustness battery but flagged in §7.2 as binding for any welfare use of the premia.
- **`genesove2001loss` / `han2015microstructure`** — list prices embed strategic
  behaviour; directly qualifies the paper's dependent variable. Now the first limitation
  in §7.4 with citations.
- **LOPO's negative Alberta R²** (paper's own result) — cuts against fully universal
  structural prices; now stated plainly in §7.2 rather than left implicit.
- I found **no verified source contradicting the headline location-share result**; the
  closest quantitative benchmarks (Davis–Heathcote 46% land share; Knoll et al.) point
  the same way.

## 5. Not changed

All tables, all figures, all reported numbers, the abstract's quantitative claims, the
data and methodology substance, and `results/reference/`. The uncited legacy bib entry
`gabaix2016power` (orphaned in the original) was left in place.