The current study first examines the relationship between school district consolidation and student proficiency test scores, then links this result to the ensuing change in house prices. Doubling school enrollment is associated with a 1% drop in student proficiency test passage rates. This drop...

A pair of municipalities may consolidate services if they are contiguous. Traditional estimation methods assume that each voting process is independent. Instead we propose a new estimation procedure that allows the probability of consolidation to be influenced by neighbouring decisions. We...

School districts that vote in favor of property tax levies may signal that they are education-oriented. Through Tiebout sorting and housing developer activity, new residents might move to such communities. New retail development may occur near these new residents, and office firms that rely on...

We examine the characteristics of people who say they buy their houses for environmental quality, school quality, public safety and low taxes. We find, for example, that young people and people without school-aged children are more likely to buy their house for low taxes. We estimate a house...

The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 increased U.S. patriotism, but did they affect voting behavior? Did fire, police, and EMS departments sense an opportunity to increase their funding after the highly-publicized rescue efforts? We find no evidence of more frequently proposed tax levies...

Communities differ in both the bundle of amenities offered to residents and the implicit price of these amenities. Thus, households are faced with a choice of which bundle to select when they select their residence. This choice implies households make tradeoffs among the amenities; that is, the...

School district consolidation is often purported to save taxpayers money. However, the current study shows that doubling the size of a school lowers student proficiency passage rates by 1%. In turn, this lowers the average house price by $400. This represents 30% of the total loss in house value...

In this paper I investigate the role of private schools in the housing market and in the supply and demand for public schooling. I estimate public school-quality supply simultaneously with demand, which provides greater confidence in calculated demand elasticities than in single-equation...