Essays on Public School Choice
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han-rwhan-phd-economics-2026-thesis.pdf
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9.19 MB
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Author(s)
Han, Raymond
Advisor(s)
Angrist, Joshua
Pathak, Parag
Date Issued
May 2026
Publisher
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Abstract
Public school choice systems aim to break the link between where families live and which schools their children attend, and are now standard practice across major urban districts. This dissertation studies the consequences of these systems for welfare and segregation in three chapters. The first chapter examines the effects of Seattle’s unusual return to neighborhood assignment in 2010. The reform reshaped enrollment patterns and triggered sharp adjustments in housing prices. Boundary discontinuity designs show that price responses are driven by sorting of households with children toward the attendance areas of more desirable schools. The second chapter develops and estimates an equilibrium model of neighborhood and school choice to quantify the welfare effects of the reform. In the model, households make decisions about where to live, trading off schooling opportunities against housing costs and non-schooling amenities. The results imply that households with school-age children benefit modestly from school choice on average. However, low-income households prefer neighborhood assignment because lower housing costs offset the value of choice for renters zoned to less desirable schools. The final chapter examines how application frictions shape the segregation consequences of school choice. A simple theoretical model illustrates how non-participation can cause choice to exacerbate segregation in schools even when preferences would otherwise lead to integration. Application records from Seattle and New York City show large gaps in participation rates by race and income. Counterfactual simulations confirm that school choice systems in both cities lead to more segregated schools, driven in part by uneven application rates. The findings in this dissertation collectively challenge core arguments for school choice.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Economics
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