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Articles

School Quality, Residential Choice, and the U.S. Housing Bubble

&
Pages 53-79
Received 29 Apr 2014
Accepted 17 Aug 2014
Published online: 04 Nov 2014
 

Using data from the American Housing Survey (years 2001–2009), we find that purchase prices for homes selected primarily to access self-identified “good schools” rose (relative to homes selected for other reasons) during the key U.S. housing bubble period, compared with the periods before and after the bubble. We observe a similar pattern in homebuyers' mortgage-to-income ratios. Various regression specifications and propensity score matching techniques show that these trends persist conditional on a range of household, demographic, and economic controls. Our results suggest that the strong, bubble-era pursuit of good schools may have played a role in the housing bubble's expansion.

Acknowledgments

The authors thank Gregorio Caetano, Manu Raghav, Ian McCarthy, and participants at the Alan Stockman Conference and Midwest Economic Association Conference for helpful comments and suggestions.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Michael Insler

Michael Insler is an assistant professor of economics at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. His current research focuses on topics in applied microeconomics such as the economics of education, the role of school policy in the U.S. housing market, and the connection between health and labor supply.

Kurtis Swope

Kurtis Swope is a professor of economics at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. His current research focuses on public policy and residential choice, in particular on issues related to land assembly, access to education, and energy consumption.

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