Mallooki

Working paper / infrastructure / August 2026

When a Road Opens Before the Project Ends

Observed-sale price gradients around phased road openings in Kuwait

Four source-checked road phases organize opening-centered spatial comparisons in Kuwait. The paper excludes each mixed opening quarter and measures current corridor proximity among observed completed-home sales. All four main intervals include zero. The two western-corridor samples share 160 blocks and have a 0.995 proximity-dose correlation, while Doha has only three near blocks, all in South Doha. The evidence describes uncertain, comparison-sensitive observed-sale gradients rather than four independent causal access effects.

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Evidence tier
Exploratory observed sales
Events
Four openings, 2016 to 2018
Outcome
Block-quarter mean log registered price per recorded plot m²
Source
Kuwait Ministry of Justice; author's calculations

Question and mechanism

A phased opening may improve route access, end construction nuisance, alter traffic exposure, or reveal information about eventual completion. The paper asks how registered completed-home price gradients move around four dated openings without pretending those mechanisms are separately observed.

Design

Exposure is an event-specific current-line proximity index, scaled using unique approved blocks within 12 kilometres rather than sale frequency. The primary ±12-quarter model excludes quarter 0, begins post in quarter +1, and includes block, calendar-quarter, and neighborhood-by-year fixed effects. The outcome is conditional on a registered completed-home sale.

What the paper finds

Jahra service road+0.18195% interval: -0.199 to +0.562
Sixth Ring branch+0.07495% interval: -0.326 to +0.473
JAND to Jahra+0.11795% interval: -0.480 to +0.714
South Doha side+0.10895% interval: -0.167 to +0.383

Source: Kuwait Ministry of Justice; author's calculations.

Timeline from 2015 through 2018 showing publicly anticipated partial openings, three overlapping western-corridor study events in 2016, the Doha Link opening in March 2018, and later western bridge and completion milestones.
The four study dates sit inside longer, publicly anticipated project sequences. The July 2018 record is a multi-element completion bundle, not a fifth price event. Sources: source-checked public opening chronology compiled in the paper.

The coefficients are not rankable because each event has a different dose scale. Jahra and JAND are two views of one western sequence: their samples share 160 blocks, their Jaccard overlap is 0.936, and their dose correlation is 0.995. Doha's near support consists of three South Doha blocks and carries no direct Jaber Al-Ahmad implication. Window and fixed-effect choices also move the estimates materially.

What the paper does and does not claim

The paper documents opening-centered observed-sale proximity gradients. It does not recover a causal access effect, total project capitalization, a welfare change, or the response of non-transacting properties. Current line distance is not a historical network treatment, and a segment opening follows years of construction and anticipation.

A causal extension needs dated network, engineering, construction, and traffic states, plus balanced sale-incidence and property-composition outcomes.

Citation and data source

Suggested citation: Mallooki. 2026. "When a Road Opens Before the Project Ends: Observed-Sale Price Gradients around Phased Road Openings in Kuwait." Working paper.

Transaction source: Kuwait Ministry of Justice, Live Registered Real-Estate Sale-Price Query. All price estimates are the author's calculations from registered transactions. The PDF contains aggregate estimates and no transaction rows, deed identifiers, or exact transaction locations.