Can the Disclosure of Enrollment Warning Information Really Reduce the Price of School District Housing? Evidence From a Natural Experiment in Hangzhou, China

Abstract

In the context of the nearby enrollment policy in China, parents’ pursuit of good educational resources has driven up the prices of school district housing. Concerning this situation, the Education Department of Zhejiang Province released the enrollment warning information for primary schools in October 2018. This information disclosure aims to guide parents to purchase housing rationally by publishing the lists of schools exceeding their enrollment capacity. Despite the policy’s practical meaning, its impact remains underexplored. Using Hangzhou, China as the study area, the current study quantitatively analyzes the effectiveness of enrollment warning disclosure through the housing market. With housing transaction data from 2018 to 2019, the study constructs the hedonic price model, difference-in-differences model, and quantile regression model to identify both average and heterogeneous effects. The results indicate that school quality is significantly capitalized into housing prices and the disclosure of enrollment warning information intensifies price differentiation between warning and non-warning primary school districts. In particular, the high-priced housing market is more sensitive to information disclosure with stronger responses observed among upper quantiles. Rather than mitigating demand, the release of the information reinforces homebuyers’ preference for high-quality schools. The empirical results and implications of this study are helpful to the continuation and optimization of warning information policy, contributing to education equity and sustainable urban development.