学区房溢价的影响因素:教育质量的视角

优质教育资源可能形成于学校的教育质量,也可能来源于生源质量。房地产的市场化定价机制为探讨优质教育资源的背后形成机制提供了便利。本文利用北京市二手房成交数据,采用特征价格模型和边界固定效应法,估算了学区房溢价。在此基础上,利用学校层面的教育质量信息,探讨了教育质量对学区房溢价的解释力。实证结果表明,以学校物质资本和教师人力资本所表征的教育质量是学区房溢价,即优质教育资源的主要来源,解释了总体学区房溢价的64.71%,这种解释力在考虑了潜在的内生性问题后依旧稳健。进一步通过量化北京市的三个教育强区(西城区、东城区和海淀区)中教育质量的解释力,发现优质教育资源既可形成于优质生源集聚,也可形成于教育经费投入长期累积所带来的教育质量的提升。义务教育均衡化改革,推动优质公共投入的公平供给,是平抑高企的学区房价格的有效手段。

The Determinants of School District Housing Price Premiums from the Perspective of School Quality

Many studies confirm that high-quality educational resources have a capitalization effect that results in price premiums for housing in school districts. High-quality educational resources, as measured by physical capital investment in schools and human capital investment in teachers, may be determined by the quality of a district's school education or the quality of its students (the peer effect). Few studies consider the mechanisms contributing to the formation of high-quality educational resources, especially the extent to which school quality determines the quality of educational resources. However, these mechanisms can be examined by using pricing information from the real estate market.Using records of second-hand housing transactions in Beijing and unique data regarding education quality at the school level, we are among the first to quantify the power of education quality in explaining school district housing premiums, and thus estimate the economic value of education quality. China's unique institutional background makes it possible to quantify the effect of school quality on school district housing premiums. Unlike most European and American countries, where education funding comes from property taxes, China's education investment depends mainly on general fiscal expenditures by local governments. Hence, in China, the causal influence of education quality on housing prices can be identified by relating school district housing price premiums to education quality data at the school level. This allows us to quantify the relationship between education quality and school district housing premiums and thus explore the mechanisms contributing to the formation of high-quality educational resources.We use the hedonic model with boundary fixed effects. Specifically, we identify the housing transaction records on both sides of each elite school's attendance zone boundary to control for unobserved factors. We then use this information to calculate each school district's housing price premium. We further match the school education quality data with the second-hand housing transaction records to quantify the role of education quality in the calculated school district housing premiums.Our results show that education quality, measured by the physical capital investment in schools and the human capital investment in teachers, explains 64.71% of the overall price premium on school district housing. Our results are robust to various confounding factors, including the potential effects of newly built primary schools, education reforms, and access to private schools. Furthermore, we quantify the power of education quality in explaining housing price premiums in three high-quality educational districts in Beijing (Xicheng District, Dongcheng District, and Haidian District). We find that high-quality educational resources come either from concentration of high-quality students within a district or from improvements in school quality due to long-term accumulation of education spending.From a Chinese policy perspective, the education equalization reforms implemented in recent years promote high-quality equity in compulsory education, which will help curb inflation of school district housing prices and moderate price fluctuations in the real estate market. Our findings indicate that the main sources of school district housing price premiums are physical capital investment and the quality of human capital at the school level, and that recent education reforms can help stabilize housing prices. Therefore, the recent equalization reforms to compulsory education will significantly improve overall school quality by increasing both physical capital investment and human capital investment in weak schools. Furthermore, given the importance of student quality (the peer effect), increasing intergenerational mobility and continuing to advance equalization of opportunities may also be important ways to stabilize school district housing prices.We contribute to the literature in three ways. First, we add to the literature by discussing the relationships between education quality and school district housing price premiums using a unique dataset that measures education quality at the school level. By matching the education quality data with housing transaction records in the real estate market, we quantify the power of education quality to explain school district housing premiums and explore the mechanisms that contribute to the formation of high-quality education resources. Second, in the context of China, we identify the causal relationship between school quality and housing premiums based on a hedonic model with boundary fixed effects. We take advantage of various stock indicators to measure education quality, including fixed asset value, school building area, the teacher-student ratio, and average teacher salary. Based on the heterogeneous effects identified among three high-quality educational districts in Beijing, we also examine how policy can influence high housing prices in school districts.