Valuing elementary schools: evidence from public school acquisitions in Beijing*
利用北京公立小学被名校收购这一政策，通过房价变化估算家庭对优质小学入学资格的支付意愿，发现被收购小学学区房价格上涨约7%。
Abstract We utilize government‐sanctioned public school acquisitions in Beijing to estimate individuals’ willingness to pay for enrollment eligibility in sought‐after elementary schools. The spatial and temporal variation in these acquisitions allows us to estimate a hedonic pricing model in the difference‐in‐difference framework. Comparing regular elementary schools that are acquired by sought‐after schools to those that are not, we find an average price increase of 7 percent for apartments in the catchment areas of acquired schools. This percentage increase is both statistically and economically significant, and it does not vary by the size of the apartment. We also find heterogeneous price effects for different types of acquisitions, defined by their post‐acquisition organizational structures, but these differences are not statistically significant.