The effect of school zone on housing prices: evidence from a quasi-natural experiment in New Zealand

Type of content
Journal Article
Thesis discipline
Degree name
Publisher
Informa UK Limited
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Language
en
Date
2024
Authors
Sun P
Coupé T
Clark, Jeremy
Abstract

We analyse a quasi-experiment where a much sought-after state secondary school with no close substitutes unexpectedly reduced its enrolment zone twice over a three-year period. We use difference-in-differences to estimate the impact of the two downsizings on housing sales prices. We use controls for housing characteristics for pooled cross section or housing fixed effects for repeat sales, test for parallel trends, and conduct numerous robustness checks. In our main analysis, we find the first downsizing may decrease housing prices between 3.2% and 12.9%, with most estimates statistically significant, while the second downsizing may decrease prices between 2.1% and 7.2%, with most estimates insignificant. Tests in the pre-treatment period suggest parallel trends cannot be rejected, though some cross section interactions are significant when the two downsizings are analysed separately. We conclude the school zone’s first downsizing likely had a negative effect on housing prices of a small to moderate magnitude.

Description
Citation
Sun P, Coupé T, Clark J (2024). The effect of school zone on housing prices: evidence from a quasi-natural experiment in New Zealand. New Zealand Economic Papers. 58(2). 147-178.
Keywords
school housing price premium, difference-in-differences, hedonic house pricing models
Ngā upoko tukutuku/Māori subject headings
ANZSRC fields of research
33 - Built environment and design::3304 - Urban and regional planning::330403 - Housing markets, development and management
38 - Economics::3802 - Econometrics::380203 - Economic models and forecasting
Rights
© 2023 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.