The Effect of School Construction on Test Scores, School Enrollment, and Home Prices

Christopher Neilson and Seth Zimmerman

No 6106, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: This paper provides new evidence on the effect of school construction projects on home prices, academic achievement, and public school enrollment. Taking advantage of the staggered implementation of a comprehensive school construction project in a poor urban district, we find that, by six years after building occupancy, $10,000 of per-student investment in school construction raised reading scores for elementary and middle school students by 0.027 standard deviations. For a student receiving the average treatment intensity this corresponds to a 0.21 standard deviation increase. School construction also raised home prices and public school enrollment in zoned neighborhoods.

Keywords: test scores; school construction; home prices (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H75 I21 I22 R30 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 47 pages
Date: 2011-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-edu, nep-lab and nep-ure
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Published - published in: Journal of Public Economics, 2014, 120 , 18-31

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Journal Article: The effect of school construction on test scores, school enrollment, and home prices (2014)
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