Author ORCID Identifier
Date Available
5-7-2020
Year of Publication
2020
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Document Type
Doctoral Dissertation
College
Business and Economics
Department/School/Program
Economics
First Advisor
Dr. Christopher Bollinger
Second Advisor
Dr. Steven Lugauer
Abstract
My dissertation consists of three essays that study the unintended consequences of education policies. The first two essays examine the impact of higher education expansion in China on household saving rate and individual migration rate. The third essay looks into the impact of a school redistricting plan and the construction a new school on housing prices in Fayette County, Kentucky.
In the first essay, I utilize the large national expansion on higher education in China which exogenously increase the enrollment of college students, to estimate the induced change in the expected college probability and how it affects saving rates for households with young children both before and after the expansion. I find a ten percentage increase in the change in college probability raises household saving rates by more than seven percentage points.
In additional to analyzing the saving behaviors of households, I analyze the migration rates of young adults in China using the same policy shock. I use an instrumental variable approach and instrument college status by access to college in province-college year level to identify the effect of college attendance on young adults' later life location choice. 2SLS estimates suggest that attending college significantly increases the likelihood of residing in a different province later in life by 9.1 percentage points.
In the third essay, I take advantage of the approval of school redistricting plan in Fayette County, Kentucky to examine the impact of school quality on housing prices. I find prices for homes redistricted from a lower-performing school into the proposed school catchment area increase by six percent. For houses in higher-performing school catchment areas redistricted to the proposed new school district, there is a smaller increase in value. Houses redistricted from higher-performing schools to lower-performing schools decrease in value by three to five percent. The estimate shows that homes in the redistricted areas increased by $108 million relative to homes that were not redistricted.
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
https://doi.org/10.13023/etd.2020.191
Recommended Citation
Ding, Xiaozhou, "Three Essays on the Economics of Education Expansion" (2020). Theses and Dissertations--Economics. 50.
https://uknowledge.uky.edu/economics_etds/50
