Selection Into Public Service: Evidence from School Board Elections

Stephen B. Billings, Hugh Macartney, Geunyong Park and John Singleton

No 29791, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: In this paper, we use narrowly-decided elections and housing transactions data to test for private returns from public office in the context of school boards in the U.S. We find no detectable effect of election to the school board on home prices in the neighborhoods of winning candidates. Stratifying by political affiliation reveals that homes appreciate in winning Republicans' neighborhoods, but the estimate is not statistically robust. We do not find corresponding evidence for improvements in local school productivity, but we show that neighborhood public schools of Republican members also shift to serving more white students through attendance zone adjustments.

JEL-codes: D72 H75 I24 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-edu, nep-pol and nep-ure
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