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Do better schools matter? Parental valuation of elementary education

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  • Sandra E. Black

Abstract

The evaluation of numerous school reforms requires an understanding of the value parents place on school quality. I use house prices to infer this value, where school quality is proxied by elementary school test scores. I do so by looking within school districts at houses located on attendance district boundaries; I am then comparing houses that differ along only one dimension: the elementary school the child attends. I thereby effectively remove the variation in neighborhood characteristics, property tax rates, and school spending. I find that parents are willing to pay 2.5% more for a 5% increase in test scores; this is approximately half the estimate one gets by running a typical hedonic housing price regression. This estimate is robust to a number of sensitivity checks.

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  • Sandra E. Black, 1997. "Do better schools matter? Parental valuation of elementary education," Research Paper 9729, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
  • Handle: RePEc:fip:fednrp:9729
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    1. Joshua D. Angrist & Alan B. Keueger, 1991. "Does Compulsory School Attendance Affect Schooling and Earnings?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 106(4), pages 979-1014.
    2. David Card & Alan Krueger, 1996. "Labor Market Effects of School Quality: Theory and Evidence," Working Papers 736, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Industrial Relations Section..
    3. David Card & Alan B. Krueger, 1996. "Labor Market Effects of School Quality: Theory and Evidence," NBER Working Papers 5450, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. repec:fth:prinin:357 is not listed on IDEAS
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