Which School Attributes Matter? The Influence of School District Performance and Demographic Composition on Property Values


Autoria(s): Clapp, John M.; Nanda, Anupam; Ross, Stephen L.
Data(s)

01/01/2007

Resumo

Increasing levels of segregation in American schools raises the question: do home buyers pay for test scores or demographic composition? This paper uses Connecticut panel data spanning eleven years from 1994 to 2004 to ascertain the relationship between property values and explanatory variables that include school district performance and demographic attributes, such as racial and ethnic composition of the student body. Town and census tract fixed effects are included to control for neighborhood unobservables. The effect of changes in school district attributes is also examined over a decade long time frame in order to focus on the effect of long run changes, which are more likely to be capitalized into prices. The study finds strong evidence that increases in percent Hispanic has a negative effect on housing prices in Connecticut, but mixed evidence concerning the impact of test scores on property values. Evidence is also found to suggest that student test scores have increased in importance for explaining housing prices in recent years while the importance of percent Hispanic has declined. Finally, the study finds that estimates of property tax capitalization increase substantially when the analysis focuses on long run changes.

Formato

application/pdf

Identificador

http://digitalcommons.uconn.edu/econ_wpapers/200526

http://digitalcommons.uconn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1094&context=econ_wpapers

Publicador

DigitalCommons@UConn

Fonte

Economics Working Papers

Palavras-Chave #school district performance #test score #demographics #house price #omitted neighborhood attributes #assessed value model #Economics
Tipo

text