The value of secondary school quality

Leslie Rosenthal

No 2000/06, Keele Department of Economics Discussion Papers (1995-2001) from Department of Economics, Keele University

Abstract: Improving the quality of state-funded secondary school education has become a major issue in the UK. However, without a valuation of the social benefits derived from public provision of educational services, the rational evaluation of policy to this end is difficult. Utilising the argument that dwellings near better schools command a price premium, this paper presents results from an empirical exercise aimed at providing such a social valuation of increased school quality. Using a large set of data for England, and an instrumental variable approach, results indicate an elasticity of dwelling purchase price with respect to exam performance by schools at around +0.05. One implication is that society would value a general increase of five percentage points in exam performance by about £450 million per annum.

Pages: 17 pages
Date: 2000-08
Note: Without the data supplied by the Nationwide Building Society, none of the following research could have been attempted, and grateful thanks are extended. Similarly, the Department of Education and Employment kindly supplied school performance tables on a personal basis, and information was utilised through the ESRC Databank and the Post Office. These organisations remain entirely innocent of any errors and conclusions drawn by the author: responsibility for the content of the paper here resides solely with the individual named above. He would not, however, wish to fully exonerate others, with whom the work has been discussed. Gauthier Lanot, Robin Bladen-Hovell, Rosemary O'Kane, Michael Ridge, and Stephanie Dale are gratefully thanked.
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Published in Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Vol. 65, Number 3, July 2003 pages 329-356. [ doi:10.1111/1468-0084.t01-1-00053 ]

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