The effect of multi-track year-round academic calendars on property values: Evidence from district imposed school calendar conversions

Abstract

Multi-track year-round school calendars allow a school to make continual use of its building over a calendar year by rotating students on separate tracks. Homeowners may a have a preference or distaste for year-round calendars for a variety of reasons, ranging from perceived academic effects to family home and work life disruptions. If households do favor one school calendar relative to another, they may have to pay an additional amount to move to a house with a different calendar. In this paper, we test this possibility. We exploit a natural experiment setting to examine how multi-track year-round calendars influence Wake County, NC residential housing prices. School assignment zone and school fixed effects are included to control for unobserved neighborhood and school characteristics that might be correlated with year-round calendars and housing prices. Our preferred estimates suggest year-round calendars are associated with a statistically significant price penalty of between one and a half to two percent.