Which Measures of School Quality Does the Housing Market Value?

Abstract

This study explores which measures of public school quality the housing market values. Both a traditional hedonic house price estimation and a hedonic corrected for spatial autocorrelation are used. Proficiency tests, expenditure per pupil and the pupil/teacher ratio are consistently capitalized into housing prices. Teacher salary and student attendance rates are also valued, but these results are sensitive to the estimation technique employed. Value-added measures, the graduation rate, teacher experience levels and teacher education levels are not consistently positively related to housing prices, so researchers should probably avoid using them as public education quality measures.