Rise and Fall: The Heterogeneous Impacts of School Federations on Housing Prices in China

School federations may promote the flow of education resources between headquarter and branch schools, yet there have been few studies on the heterogeneous effect of school federations on housing prices of headquarter and branch school attendance zones. This article uses a difference in difference in differences (DDD) model to examine this effect with house transaction data of Hefei, China. It found that school federations make housing prices in headquarter school attendance zones rise, while prices in branch school attendance zones fall. Results imply school-choice families prefer headquarter schools to branch schools of federations. Potential explanations imply that the federation makes headquarter schools capture more senior teachers, and may disclose the better education quality information about headquarter schools to school-choice families.