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Best Education Money Can Buy? Capitalization of School Quality in Finland

Author

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  • Oskari Harjunen
  • Mika Kortelainen
  • Tuukka Saarimaa

Abstract

By international comparison, Finnish pupil achievement is high and school achievement differences small. The Finnish education system is unusual also because there are no national testing programmes, and information on school quality measures is not publicly disclosed. Is school quality capitalized into house prices in this environment? Using a boundary discontinuity research design and data from Helsinki, we find that it is: 1 standard deviation increase in average test scores increases prices on average by 3%, which is comparable to findings from the UK and the USA. We argue that this surprisingly large effect is at least partly explained by the inelasticity of housing supply, as we use data from a densely populated urban area. We also show that the effect depends on local land supply conditions within the city and is highest in areas with inelastic supply. Furthermore, the price premium seems to be related to pupils’ socio-economic background rather than school effectiveness.

Suggested Citation

  • Oskari Harjunen & Mika Kortelainen & Tuukka Saarimaa, 2018. "Best Education Money Can Buy? Capitalization of School Quality in Finland," CESifo Economic Studies, CESifo Group, vol. 64(2), pages 150-175.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:cesifo:v:64:y:2018:i:2:p:150-175.
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    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/cesifo/ifx025
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    Cited by:

    1. Huang, Bin & He, Xiaoyan & Xu, Lei & Zhu, Yu, 2020. "Elite school designation and housing prices-quasi-experimental evidence from Beijing, China✰," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(C).
    2. Federico Belotti & Edoardo Di Porto & Gianluca Santoni, 2018. "Spatial Differencing: Estimation and Inference," CESifo Economic Studies, CESifo Group, vol. 64(2), pages 241-254.
    3. Andersson, Henrik & Blind, Ina & Brunåker, Fabian & Dahlberg, Matz & Fredriksson, Greta & Granath, Jakob & Liang, Che-Yuan, 2023. "What's in a Label? On Neighbourhood Labelling, Stigma and Housing Prices," SocArXiv xu759, Center for Open Science.
    4. Ismail, Mohammad & Warsame, Abukar & Wilhelmsson, Mats, 2022. "Schools' capitalization into housing values in a context of free school choices," Working Paper Series 22/4, Royal Institute of Technology, Department of Real Estate and Construction Management & Banking and Finance.
    5. Huang, Bin & He, Xiaoyan & Xu, Lei & Zhu, Yu, 2020. "Elite School Designation and Housing Prices: Quasi-Experimental Evidence from Beijing, China," IZA Discussion Papers 12897, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    6. Venla Bernelius & Katja Vilkama, 2019. "Pupils on the move: School catchment area segregation and residential mobility of urban families," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 56(15), pages 3095-3116, November.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    boundary discontinuity; house prices; school quality; spatial differencing;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C21 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Cross-Sectional Models; Spatial Models; Treatment Effect Models
    • H75 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - State and Local Government: Health, Education, and Welfare
    • I20 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - General
    • R21 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Household Analysis - - - Housing Demand

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