The Unintended Consequences of a Four-Day School Week on House Prices : Evidence from a Quasi-Natural Experiment in Colorado

Faced with decreasing funds, increasing costs, and the inability to recruit and retain quality teachers, a growing number of school districts across the United States are switching to four-day school weeks. Because the four-day school week has historically been relegated to rural communities, no study has investigated how homeowners value the policy using market-based measures. Using housing transaction data from the first school district in a major metropolitan area to convert to a four-day school week, we examine homeowners' valuation of the policy change. We find that house prices decreased 2 to 5 percent relative to surrounding school districts soon after the policy was announced