Broadband's relationship to rural housing values

Using data for remote rural US counties (n = 887) we estimate the impact of broadband Internet access on median housing value. We account for spatial dependencies in the joint determination of investments in broadband access and housing values using a modified spatial three stage least squares (3SLS) estimator. The data support the central hypothesis that remote rural housing values are positively impacted by higher access. Our estimates suggest that there are declining returns to speed availability, with access to at least some type of Internet being more valuable than having only a very high-speed connection accessible.