Field and Natural Experiments: Housing, Transport, Health (Event 1)

Seminars 1

School Catchment Zone Mergers and Housing Wealth Redistribution

Speaker

Prof. Kelvin Wong Department of Real Estate and Construction, The University of Hong Kong

Abstract

This study investigates how perceived school quality affects housing values, using a new estimation method. Our empirical design takes advantage of the mergers of school catchment zones initiated by the government to develop quasi-experiments. We find that, in zones that gained sudden access to higher ranked schools, housing prices increased by 1.3 to 4.1 percent. Larger and more expensive houses appreciated more in response to the improvement in perceived quality of available schools. The findings generate important policy implications regarding housing wealth redistribution and housing expenditures among different households. The study also enriches the literature on the capitalization effect of school quality.

Seminars 2

Rail transit and the growth of urban amenities in Chinese cities

Speaker

Dr Christina Li Department of Land Economy, University of Cambridge

Abstract

Cities are attractive for many reasons, and the richness of urban amenities is one of them. This study examines how the clusters of private urban amenities are affected by rail transit investment based on the experiences of six Chinese cities that are in different stages of rail transit development. Using geocoded private amenity data, a difference-in-differences model is designed to estimate the rail transit effects from a sample 315 new stations opened during 2015 and 2018. Our results show that the opening of a new rail transit station induces a growth of approximately 4% in the number of urban amenities in the neighborhood of the station within one year of its opening. The impact strengthens substantially after two years. The rail transit effect varies across cities and over different neighborhoods within a city. In most cities, the rail transit effects are stronger in central areas, contributing to agglomeration of urban amenities. However, when the rail system expands extremely rapidly, the opening of a new station triggers greater growth in the suburban, leading to a decentralization effect. In addition, we find limited impacts of neighborhood purchasing power and transit-land joint development on the local amenity growth.

Discussant

Dr Ozge Oner Department of Land Economy, University of Cambridge