The Capitalization of School Quality in Rents in the Beijing Housing Market: A Propensity Score Matching Method

Abstract

In China, the capitalization of education resources in housing prices has been widely discussed. However, insufficient attention is paid to it in rents. Thus, this paper mainly aims to identify the capitalization of school quality in rents. It estimates a hedonic treatment effects model by introducing the propensity score matching (PSM) method. The empirical analysis is based on 49,438 rental transaction data of 2016–2018 in Beijing, China. It finds that school quality can be significantly capitalized in rents across different school quality (ranked as 1st-class, 2nd-class, and popular-class), space, and time. Besides, quality school density (the number of quality schools) within neighborhoods can significantly moderate the nearest school’s capitalization, promoting a 3.5% capitalization increase in outer municipal districts but a 3% decrease in inner districts. The popular-class schools can be capitalized into the rent of inner districts, probably because of other exogenous factors (e.g., housing prices, public transit). In addition, the equitable housing policy might show a potential risk in worsening social inequality between homeowners and renters in the municipal areas with high competition for 1st-class schools. In contrast, it may remedy such inequality in outer districts with less competition for quality schools.