This file is part of IDEAS, which uses RePEc data


[ Papers | Articles | Software | Books | Chapters | Authors | Institutions | JEL Classification | NEP reports | Search | New papers by email | Author registration | Rankings | Volunteers | FAQ | Blog | Help! ]

Capitalization of the quality of local public schools: what do home buyers value?

Author info | Abstract | Publisher info | Download info | Related research | Statistics
Author Info
Theodore M. Crone
Abstract

The expansion of state-mandated tests in the 1990s and the testing requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act have supplied researchers with an abundance of data on test scores that can be used as measures of school quality. This paper uses the state-mandated test scores for 5th grade and 11th grade in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, to examine three issues about the capitalization of school quality into house prices: (1) At what level do prospective home buyers evaluate the quality of local public education—at the district level or the level of the neighborhood school? (2) After accounting for student achievement as reflected in test scores, are other aspects of the local public school system, such as class size or expenditures, capitalized into the value of a house? (3) Are the positive results we get for the capitalization of school quality into house prices due simply to the correlation between high test scores and other desirable neighborhood characteristics? The results of our investigation suggest that to home buyers some test-score averages are significantly better indicators of the quality of the local public school system than others. In particular, home buyers seem to evaluate the quality of public education at the district level rather than at the level of the local school. Class size at the high-school level has some independent effect on house prices, but not class size at the elementary school level. And once we account for student achievement, expenditures per pupil have no further effect on house prices. Finally, restricting our sample to similar neighborhoods along school district boundaries confirms our earlier results for high school test scores but not for elementary school scores.

Download Info
To download:

If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. Information about this may be contained in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.

File URL: http://www.philadelphiafed.org/research-and-data/publications/working-papers//2006/wp06-15.pdf
File Format: application/pdf
File Function:
Download Restriction: no

Publisher Info
Paper provided by Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia in its series Working Papers with number 06-15.

Download reference. The following formats are available: HTML (with abstract), plain text (with abstract), BibTeX, RIS (EndNote, RefMan, ProCite), ReDIF
Length:
Date of creation: 2006
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:fip:fedpwp:06-15

Contact details of provider:
Postal: 10 Independence Mall, Philadelphia, PA 19106-1574
Web page: http://www.philadelphiafed.org/
More information through EDIRC

Order Information:
Email:
Web: http://www.phil.frb.org/econ/wps/index.html

For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its listing, contact: (Diane Rosenberger).

Related research
Keywords: Education ; School choice;

Other versions of this item:

This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports: References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
  1. David N. Figlio & Maurice E. Lucas, 2004. "What's in a Grade? School Report Cards and the Housing Market," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(3), pages 591-604, June. [Downloadable!]
  2. Thomas J. Kane & Douglas O. Staiger & Stephanie K. Riegg, 2005. "School Quality, Neighborhoods and Housing Prices: The Impacts of school Desegregation," NBER Working Papers 11347, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  3. Patrick Bayer & Fernando Ferreira & Robert McMillan, 2004. "Tiebout Sorting, Social Multipliers and the Demand for School Quality," NBER Working Papers 10871, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  4. David Brasington & Don Haurin, . "Capitalization of Parent, School, and Peer Group Components of School Quality into House Price," Departmental Working Papers 2005-04, Department of Economics, Louisiana State University. [Downloadable!]
  5. Rosen, Harvey S & Fullerton, David J, 1977. "A Note on Local Tax Rates, Public Benefit Levels, and Property Values," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 85(2), pages 433-40, April. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  6. Rosen, Sherwin, 1974. "Hedonic Prices and Implicit Markets: Product Differentiation in Pure Competition," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 82(1), pages 34-55, Jan.-Feb.. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  7. David M. Brasington, 2000. "Demand and Supply of Public School Quality in Metropolitan Areas: The Role of Private Schools," Journal of Regional Science, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 40(3), pages 583-605. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  8. Christian A. L. Hilber & Christopher J. Mayer, 2002. "Why do households without children support local public schools? linking house price capitalization to school spending," Working Papers 02-10, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  9. Linneman, Peter, 1980. "Some empirical results on the nature of the hedonic price function for the urban housing market," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 8(1), pages 47-68, July. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  10. Sheppard, Stephen, 1999. "Hedonic analysis of housing markets," Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, in: P. C. Cheshire & E. S. Mills (ed.), Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 41, pages 1595-1635 Elsevier. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  11. Haurin, Donald R. & Brasington, David, 1996. "School Quality and Real House Prices: Inter- and Intrametropolitan Effects," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 5(4), pages 351-368, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  12. King, A Thomas, 1977. "Estimating Property Tax Capitalization: A Critical Comment," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 85(2), pages 425-31, April. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  13. Thomas J. Nechyba, 2000. "Mobility, Targeting, and Private-School Vouchers," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(1), pages 130-146, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  14. David M. Brasington, 1999. "Which Measures of School Quality Does the Housing Market Value?," Journal of Real Estate Research, American Real Estate Society, vol. 18(3), pages 395-414. [Downloadable!]
  15. Patrick Bayer & Fernando Ferreira & Robert McMillan, 2007. "A Unified Framework for Measuring Preferences for Schools and Neighborhoods," NBER Working Papers 13236, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  16. Nechyba, Thomas J, 1999. " School Finance Induced Migration and Stratification Patterns: The Impact of Private School Vouchers," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 1(1), pages 5-50. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  17. Oates, Wallace E, 1973. "The Effects of Property Taxes and Local Public Spending on Property Values: A Reply and Yet Further Results," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 81(4), pages 1004-08, July-Aug.. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  18. Halvorsen, Robert & Pollakowski, Henry O., 1981. "Choice of functional form for hedonic price equations," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 10(1), pages 37-49, July. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  19. Fernandez, Raquel & Rogerson, Richard, 1996. "Income Distribution, Communities, and the Quality of Public Education," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 111(1), pages 135-64, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  20. Thomas J. Kane & Douglas O. Staiger, 2002. "The Promise and Pitfalls of Using Imprecise School Accountability Measures," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 16(4), pages 91-114, Fall. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  21. Patrick Bayer & Robert McMillan & Kim Rueben, 2004. "An Equilibrium Model of Sorting in an Urban Housing Market," NBER Working Papers 10865, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  22. Reinhard, Raymond M, 1981. "Estimating Property Tax Capitalization: A Further Comment," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 89(6), pages 1251-60, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  23. Hanushek, Eric A, 1986. "The Economics of Schooling: Production and Efficiency in Public Schools," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 24(3), pages 1141-77, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  24. Cropper, Maureen L & Deck, Leland B & McConnell, Kenneth E, 1988. "On the Choice of Functional Form for Hedonic Price Functions," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 70(4), pages 668-75, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  25. Goodman, Allen C. & Thibodeau, Thomas G., 1998. "Housing Market Segmentation," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 7(2), pages 121-143, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  26. Thomas J. Kane & Douglas O. Staiger, 2001. "Improving School Accountability Measures," NBER Working Papers 8156, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  27. Benabou, Roland, 1993. "Workings of a City: Location, Education, and Production," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 108(3), pages 619-52, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  28. Oates, Wallace E, 1969. "The Effects of Property Taxes and Local Public Spending on Property Values: An Empirical Study of Tax Capitalization and the Tiebout Hypothesis," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 77(6), pages 957-71, Nov./Dec.. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  29. Sandra E. Black, 1999. "Do Better Schools Matter? Parental Valuation Of Elementary Education," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 114(2), pages 577-599, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  30. Brueckner, Jan K., 1979. "Property values, local public expenditure and economic efficiency," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 11(2), pages 223-245, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  31. Benabou, Roland, 1996. "Heterogeneity, Stratification, and Growth: Macroeconomic Implications of Community Structure and School Finance," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 86(3), pages 584-609, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  32. Bradbury, Katharine L. & Mayer, Christopher J. & Case, Karl E., 2001. "Property tax limits, local fiscal behavior, and property values: evidence from Massachusetts under Proposition," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(2), pages 287-311, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  33. Kathy J. Hayes & Lori L. Taylor, 1996. "Neighborhood school characteristics: what signals quality to homebuyers?," Economic and Financial Policy Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, issue Q IV, pages 2-9. [Downloadable!]
Full references

Statistics
Access and download statistics

Did you know? You too can volunteer for RePEc, for example by providing information about publications in your institution.

This page was last updated on 2009-11-18.

This information is provided to you by IDEAS at the Department of Economics, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, University of Connecticut using RePEc data on a server sponsored by the Society for Economic Dynamics.