Self-Interest in Public Service. Evidence from School Board Elections.

Autor/inn/en	Billings, Stephen B.; Macartney, Hugh; Park, Geunyong; Singleton, John D.
Institution	National Bureau of Economic Research
Titel	Self-Interest in Public Service. Evidence from School Board Elections.
Quelle	Cambridge, Mass.: National Bureau of Economic Research (2022) PDF als Volltext (1); PDF als Volltext (2) Link als defekt meldenVerfügbarkeit
Reihe	NBER working paper series. w29791
Beigaben	Illustrationen
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	online; Monographie; Graue Literatur
DOI	10.3386/w29791
Schlagwörter	Schule; Interesse; Politische Einstellung; Immobilie; Arbeitspapier; USA
Abstract	In this paper, we show that the election of a new school board member causes home values in their neighborhood to rise. This increase is identified using narrowly-decided contests and is driven by non-Democratic members, whose neighborhoods appreciate about 4% on average relative to those of losing candidates. We find that student test scores in the neighborhood public schools of non-Democratic winners also relatively increase, but this effect is driven by changing student composition, including via the manipulation of attendance zones, rather than improvements in school quality (as measured by test score value-added). Notably, we detect no differential changes when comparing neighborhood or scholastic outcomes between winning and losing Democratic school board candidates. These results suggest that partisan affiliation is correlated with private motivations for seeking public office.
Erfasst von	ZBW - Leibniz-Informationszentrum Wirtschaft, Kiel
Update	2022/3