Parental Valuation of Good Primary Schools: Hedonic Pricing with High Density Housing Data and Uniform Boundaries for School Admission Balloting

This paper estimates the value of priority admission to primary schools with different academic reputations. For identification, it exploits a balloting rule governing primary one registration in Singapore. The rule creates a discontinuous change in admission probability at fixed distances from schools, in neighborhoods where government policies prevent drastic variations in ethnic composition and neighborhood design. Using resale market prices of public flats where most Singaporeans live in, the evidence suggests that parents value schools with good performance or good progress in academic achievement. Restricting the sample to neighboring blocks near the boundaries of good schools results in similar conclusions. JEL Classification: I21, R21 Keywords: Hedonic Pricing, Parental Valuation of Education, School Choice. 























































 1 Department of Economics, National University of Singapore, AS2, 1 Arts Link, Singapore 117570, Republic of Singapore. Tel: +65-6516-6016; fax: +65-6775-2646; email: [email protected]. I especially thank Principal Chin Kim Woon and his staff for very useful clarification on the primary one registration exercise. I also thank Haoming Liu, Cheolsung Park, and Jessica Pan for useful discussions. The usual disclaimer applies.