https://macropaperwarehouse.com/authors/barbara-biasi/Barbara BiasiHugo -- gohugo.ioen-ushttps://macropaperwarehouse.com/papers/what-works-and-for-whom-effectiveness-and-efficiency-of-school-capital-investments-across-the-u.s./https://macropaperwarehouse.com/papers/what-works-and-for-whom-effectiveness-and-efficiency-of-school-capital-investments-across-the-u.s./<h3 id="research-question">Research Question</h3> <p>This paper investigates which types of school facility investments benefit students (as measured by test scores) and are valued by homeowners (as measured by house prices), and for which student populations these investments are most effective. Prior state-level studies had reached conflicting conclusions about the returns to school capital spending, and no nationwide evidence had distinguished impacts across spending categories or student backgrounds.</p> <h3 id="data-and-methodology">Data and Methodology</h3> <p>The authors assemble a novel panel dataset covering approximately 14,000 school bond referenda in 29 U.S. states and 10,146 districts enrolling 71% of all U.S. students, for the period 1990–2017. The dataset combines: (1) ballot-level bond election records including vote shares, proposed amounts, and ballot text; (2) district-level test scores from the Stanford Education Data Archive (SEDA) extended backward to 2003 for all states and as early as 1995 for some, normalized to a national scale via NAEP; (3) a Census-tract-level house price index (Contat and Larson, 2022) aggregated to school districts; and (4) NCES district finance and demographic data.</p>