Public Services, Remote Work, and Housing Prices
Paper Session
Saturday, Jan. 8, 2022 12:15 PM - 2:15 PM (EST)
- Chair: Amy Ellen Schwartz, Syracuse University
Housing Market Determinants of School Demographic Diversity
Abstract
This paper examines the effects of local economic development on the racial composition of local public schools. From 2001 to 2017, four high-growth economies in Texas received 61% of new affordable housing units and 70% of new elementary schools built in the state. School demographics during this time are characterized by positive Hispanic enrollment growth and decreased white enrollment across all income quartiles, along with increased Asian enrollment in schools serving high-income neighborhoods. I map each new housing development and school to an existing school attendance boundary and estimate the effect on incumbent school demographics. The preliminary results suggest spillovers from place-based policy include the role of government in the formation of neighborhood racial composition.What Do Hedonic House Price Estimates Tell Us When CAP Rates Vary?
Abstract
This paper demonstrates theoretically and empirically that estimated implicit prices from hedonic equations using house value do not reflect implicit willingness to pay for housing attributes unless very strong conditions are present. The argument is simple. Implicit prices obtained from rental hedonics, consistent with theory, reveal the willingness to pay for current housing services. Therefore hedonic equations relating asset prices to current characteristics only reveal willingness to pay for structure and neighborhood services if CAP rates (rent to value ratios) are constant. In some cases, the sign of the bias inherent in using asset rather than rental prices can be anticipated. Some rules and tests for situations where CAP rates are constant are developed here.Decoupling Homes and Schools: Assessing the Impact of Forced School Choice on Residential Change
Abstract
Many school choice policies provide exit options from neighborhood schools, but still allow families to guarantee access to desirable neighborhood schools by living within the school boundaries. Alternatively, forced school choice more fully decouples homes and schools by removing default neighborhood school options. Here, I examine how one forced choice policy that merged neighborhood school boundaries into larger bundles of school options with no single default impacted residential change. I exploit the quasi-randomness of the timing of the policy change by comparing properties and neighborhoods that were zoned earlier to those that were zoned later, examining effects separately for homes that were decoupled from higher and lower rated schools. My results suggest that neighborhoods decoupled from higher-rated schools experience decreases in housing values, the share of white and college-educated residents, and median family income. Neighborhoods previously linked to lower rated schools experienced relatively little direct change from the policy. These results stand in contrast to past work examining the residential effects of other forms of schools choice that offer exit options.Discussant(s)
Jessie Handbury
,
University of Pennsylvania
Rachel Meltzer
,
Harvard University
Stephen Ross
,
University of Connecticut
Stephen Billings
,
University of Colorado
JEL Classifications
- R3 - Real Estate Markets, Spatial Production Analysis, and Firm Location