version anonyme pour soumission en revue (main_anon.tex, titlepage_anon.tex)

Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5.1 <noreply@anthropic.com>

Simon-Pierre Boucher committed 1 h ago (Oct 17, 2026) parent 1be83c5

3 changed files +196 −0

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	1	+% ============================================================================
	2	+% UQO Working Paper Template — Economics / Finance
	3	+% ============================================================================
	4	+\documentclass[12pt,letterpaper]{article}
	5	+
	6	+% --- Encoding & Language ---
	7	+\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
	8	+\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
	9	+\usepackage[english]{babel}
	10	+
	11	+% --- Page Layout ---
	12	+\usepackage[
	13	+ letterpaper,
	14	+ top=1in,
	15	+ bottom=1in,
	16	+ left=1in,
	17	+ right=1in
	18	+]{geometry}
	19	+
	20	+% --- Typography ---
	21	+\usepackage{mathptmx} % Times-like font (text + math)
	22	+\usepackage{microtype} % Improved typographic refinements
	23	+\usepackage{setspace}
	24	+\onehalfspacing % 1.5 line spacing
	25	+
	26	+% --- Math ---
	27	+\usepackage{amsmath,amssymb,amsthm}
	28	+
	29	+% --- Tables ---
	30	+\usepackage{booktabs}
	31	+\usepackage{tabularx}
	32	+\usepackage{multirow}
	33	+\usepackage{threeparttable}
	34	+\usepackage{siunitx}
	35	+\sisetup{
	36	+ input-symbols = {()},
	37	+ table-format = -1.3,
	38	+ parse-numbers = false
	39	+}
	40	+
	41	+% --- Figures ---
	42	+\usepackage{graphicx}
	43	+\usepackage{subcaption}
	44	+\graphicspath{{figures/}}
	45	+\usepackage{float}
	46	+
	47	+% --- Colors & Links ---
	48	+\usepackage[dvipsnames]{xcolor}
	49	+\usepackage[
	50	+ colorlinks = true,
	51	+ linkcolor = NavyBlue,
	52	+ citecolor = NavyBlue,
	53	+ urlcolor = NavyBlue,
	54	+ breaklinks = true
	55	+]{hyperref}
	56	+\hypersetup{pdftitle={Does the Sales Comparison Approach Actually Work? A Large-Scale Point-in-Time Validation of Comparable Selection, Price Adjustments, and Value Reconciliation}, pdfauthor={}}
	57	+
	58	+% --- Bibliography ---
	59	+\usepackage[authoryear,round,semicolon]{natbib}
	60	+\bibliographystyle{aer}
	61	+
	62	+% --- Captions ---
	63	+\usepackage[
	64	+ font = small,
	65	+ labelfont = bf,
	66	+ labelsep = period,
	67	+ justification = justified,
	68	+ singlelinecheck = false
	69	+]{caption}
	70	+
	71	+% --- Headers & Footers ---
	72	+\usepackage{fancyhdr}
	73	+\pagestyle{fancy}
	74	+\fancyhf{}
	75	+\renewcommand{\headrulewidth}{0pt}
	76	+\fancyfoot[C]{\thepage}
	77	+
	78	+% --- Section Formatting ---
	79	+\usepackage{titlesec}
	80	+\titleformat{\section}{\large\bfseries}{\thesection.}{0.5em}{}
	81	+\titleformat{\subsection}{\normalsize\bfseries}{\thesubsection.}{0.5em}{}
	82	+\titleformat{\subsubsection}{\normalsize\itshape}{\thesubsubsection.}{0.5em}{}
	83	+
	84	+% --- Appendix Support ---
	85	+\usepackage[toc,page]{appendix}
	86	+
	87	+% --- Misc ---
	88	+\usepackage{enumitem}
	89	+\setlist{nosep,leftmargin=*}
	90	+
	91	+% ============================================================================
	92	+% METADATA — Edit these fields for each working paper
	93	+% ============================================================================
	94	+\newcommand{\WPnumber}{16}
	95	+\newcommand{\WPtitle}{Does the Sales Comparison Approach Actually Work? A Large-Scale Point-in-Time Validation of Comparable Selection, Price Adjustments, and Value Reconciliation}
	96	+\newcommand{\WPsubtitle}{Evidence from 391,000 Single-Family Transactions in Quebec, 2021--2026}
	97	+\newcommand{\WPdate}{October 2026}
	98	+\newcommand{\WPversion}{1.0}
	99	+\newcommand{\WPabstract}{%
	100	+ The sales comparison approach is the dominant method of residential valuation, yet its operating rules---how many comparables to use, how far and how far back to search, which adjustments to apply, how to weight and reconcile---rest largely on professional convention. We subject these rules to a large-scale, point-in-time backtest on \nSalesClean{} arm's-length single-family transactions in Quebec (2021--2026) matched to the municipal assessment roll. For each of \nTargetsAll{} target sales in 2024--2026, the price is masked and \nConfigs{} configurations of the approach---together with hedonic, gradient-boosting, assessment-ratio and hybrid benchmarks---are applied using only information available on the valuation date; configurations are selected on 2024 and evaluated out of sample on 2025--2026. Adjustments dominate: the median absolute error of the five nearest sales falls from \mdapeMtwo{} with a time adjustment only to \mdapeMseven{} with a hedonic adjustment grid, and a stylized conventional grid captures most of that gain. Selecting physically similar rather than merely nearby comparables delivers a comparable gain without any adjustment. The optimal number of comparables is well above the conventional three---around twenty once a grid is applied, with no penalty up to fifty---and short time windows are dominated; the search radius matters far less than the number and similarity of the sales retained. Weighting and reconciliation rules matter little. The best transparent configuration chosen in 2024 reaches \mdapeMzero{} out of sample, against \mdapeMelevenB{} for a quarterly-retrained gradient-boosting model that uses the assessed value and \mdapeMtwelve{} for a hybrid; the cost of transparency is small and narrows in homogeneous submarkets. Accuracy is governed primarily by submarket liquidity; a wide-net rule that retains the most similar sales is self-adapting, and stratum-specific rules do not improve on it. The results turn a convention-based method into a set of empirically validated, reproducible rules.
	101	+}
	102	+\newcommand{\WPkeywords}{sales comparison approach, comparable selection, adjustment grid, automated valuation models, hedonic pricing, backtesting, residential real estate, Quebec}
	103	+\newcommand{\WPjel}{R31, R32, C52, C53, G12}
	104	+
	105	+% --- Author ---
	106	+\newcommand{\WPauthor}{Simon-Pierre Boucher}
	107	+\newcommand{\WPaffiliation}{%
	108	+ Département des sciences administratives\\
	109	+ Université du Québec en Outaouais%
	110	+}
	111	+\newcommand{\WPemail}{simon-pierre.boucher@uqo.ca}
	112	+\newcommand{\WPaddress}{%
	113	+ Gatineau -- Pavillon Alexandre-Taché\\
	114	+ 283, boulevard Alexandre-Taché\\
	115	+ Gatineau, Québec, Canada J9A 1L8%
	116	+}
	117	+
	118	+% ============================================================================
	119	+% DOCUMENT
	120	+% ============================================================================
	121	+\begin{document}
	122	+
	123	+% --- Title Page ---
	124	+\input{tables/numbers}
	125	+\input{sections/titlepage_anon}
	126	+
	127	+% --- Main Body ---
	128	+\input{sections/introduction}
	129	+\input{sections/literature}
	130	+\input{sections/data}
	131	+\input{sections/methodology}
	132	+\input{sections/results}
	133	+\input{sections/robustness}
	134	+\input{sections/conclusion}
	135	+
	136	+% --- References ---
	137	+\newpage
	138	+\bibliography{references}
	139	+
	140	+% --- Appendix ---
	141	+\input{appendix/appendix}
	142	+
	143	+\end{document}

added paper/sections/titlepage_anon.tex +53 −0

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	1	+% ============================================================================
	2	+% ANONYMOUS TITLE PAGE — for double-anonymized journal submission
	3	+% Used by paper/main_anon.tex (same macros as main.tex, no author block,
	4	+% no institution, no logo). Abstract/keywords/JEL page identical to titlepage.tex.
	5	+% ============================================================================
	6	+\thispagestyle{empty}
	7	+\begin{center}
	8	+
	9	+\vspace*{3cm}
	10	+
	11	+{\LARGE\bfseries \WPtitle\par}
	12	+
	13	+\ifx\WPsubtitle\empty\else
	14	+ \vspace{0.3cm}
	15	+ {\large\itshape \WPsubtitle\par}
	16	+\fi
	17	+
	18	+\vspace{1.5cm}
	19	+
	20	+{\normalsize [Author identity withheld for review]}
	21	+
	22	+\vspace{0.8cm}
	23	+
	24	+{\normalsize \WPdate}
	25	+
	26	+\end{center}
	27	+
	28	+\vfill
	29	+
	30	+\newpage
	31	+\thispagestyle{empty}
	32	+\vspace*{1cm}
	33	+
	34	+\noindent\rule{\textwidth}{0.4pt}
	35	+\vspace{0.3cm}
	36	+
	37	+\noindent\textbf{Abstract}
	38	+\vspace{0.15cm}
	39	+
	40	+\noindent\WPabstract
	41	+
	42	+\vspace{0.4cm}
	43	+
	44	+\noindent\textbf{Keywords:} \WPkeywords
	45	+
	46	+\vspace{0.15cm}
	47	+
	48	+\noindent\textbf{JEL Classification:} \WPjel
	49	+
	50	+\vspace{0.3cm}
	51	+\noindent\rule{\textwidth}{0.4pt}
	52	+
	53	+\newpage
	54