A Study of Neighborhood Choice: The Impact of School Quality

Author: Lariece M. Grant-Brown

Dissertation School: The Ohio State University

Abstract:

This paper will look at the economic determinants of neighborhood choice with an emphasis on the role of school quality and other local amenities. Since neighborhood choice can be thought of as a discrete choice problem, I propose to use variations of the discrete choice multinominal logit model to estimate the probability of choosing a particular neighborhood. The logit models will be estimated using panel data from the 1987-96 waves of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth that has been geocoded allowing researchers to incorporate space in economic models.

The proposed project is relevant to the policy priorities of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) because of the potential policy implications that could grow out of the project. This paper will deal with neighborhood choice, which is a subtopic of regionalism. Further study of neighborhood choice could illuminate the role of schools and local expenditure policies in the development of cities and neighborhoods. It could help policymakers understand the reasons behind the composition of the neighborhoods within a metropolitan statistical area especially when considering suburbs versus central city issues. As HUD continues its commitment to fair housing opportunities, an analysis that quantifies the relative importance of economic or labor market factors, transportation costs, school quality, and constraints on mobility could prove extremely useful.

Back to Search Result of EDSRG Dissertations