This study explores the influence of a regulation of informal school choice on the housing market in Shanghai to estimate the significance of loopholes in the school district system. The policy limited the priority for enrollment in a public elementary schools given to house owners in the school's district so that each housing property is given only one priority every five years; hence, informal acquisition of priorities through frequent resale of houses is limited. From the dataset of individual housing prices in Shanghai, we show that house price within the school districts of good schools increases after the policy. In contrast, house price decreases in areas that are neighboring the school but outside its school district because they are called “babysitting communities” and provide houses to live in for households who resell their houses earlier than graduation of their children. We also implement event study analysis to estimate time-varying influences of the policy, to show that the significant price increase occurs immediately after the policy implementation and shrinks a little in the short run.

本研究探讨了非正式择校规定对上海住房市场的影响，以估计学区制度漏洞的重要性。该政策限制了学区房主的公立小学入学优先权，每套住房每五年只能获得一次优先权；因此，通过频繁转售房屋而非正式获得优先权的做法是有限的。从上海个人房价数据来看，政策实施后好学校学区内的房价上涨。相比之下，与学校相邻但在学区外的地区房价下跌，因为它们被称为“保姆社区”，为那些在孩子毕业前转售房屋的家庭提供住房居住。我们还通过事件研究分析来估计政策的时变影响，表明价格在政策实施后立即出现显着上涨，并在短期内略有回落。