TY  - JOUR
AU  - Figlio, David N
AU  - Lucas, Maurice E
TI  - What's in a Grade? School Report Cards and House Prices
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 8019
PY  - 2000
Y2  - November 2000
DO  - 10.3386/w8019
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w8019
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w8019.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
David N. Figlio
Institute for Policy Research
Northwestern University
2040 Sheridan Road
Evanston, IL 60208
Tel: 847-467-1503
Fax: 847-491-9916
E-Mail: figlio@northwestern.edu

Maurice E. Lucas
E-Mail: VBEH.documentation@abpinvestments.nl
AB  - Throughout the last decade, many states around the country have begun making public student test scores or other evaluative measures of school quality available to the general public.  The most recent trends in state policies under consideration, already enacted in Florida and a n major component of George W. Bush's education platform, involve the assignment of letter grades to rate school quality.  Because school quality is one of a group of local public goods purchased along with a house, one would anticipate  that additional information about school  quality would capitalize  into real estate values. This paper takes the first look at the role that this type of added information plays in the capitalization of school quality measures.  We use rich student test score and housing value data from a medium-sized Florida school district, one of the nation's 200 largest, to directly investigate this link. Using data on repeat sales of properties before and after the assignment of school letter grades, we find significant evidence that arbitrary distinctions embedded in school report cards lead to major housing price effects.
ER  -