| This dissertation is comprised of three chapters focusing on residential housing. The first chapter begins by reviewing the economics literature that uses hedonic house price models as a means to estimate how school quality affects housing prices. A hedonic house price model is then estimated using MLS data from Charleston, South Carolina to see whether homebuyers use the federally implemented No Child Left Behind (NCLB) ratings as a measure of school quality. The results indicate that even after controlling for a variety of housing characteristics, location-specific amenities, and state-level school quality estimates, NCLB has a significantly positive impact on housing prices, implying that homebuyers are willing to pay a premium for houses zoned for schools with good NCLB ratings.;The second chapter is an empirical analysis that seeks to determine the major influences on housing starts in South Carolina. Using county-level data from five major metropolitan areas in and around South Carolina, the impacts of a range of variables typically used to explain housing starts at the national level are estimated. While the explanatory power of the model is quite high, individual variables are only marginally significant. The results also show slight evidence for the housing boom of the early 2000s.;The third chapter uses MLS data from Charleston, SC to determine whether the Building Permit Allocation Program (BPAP) enacted in 2001 to restrict housing growth in Mt. Pleasant led to an increase in Mt. Pleasant housing prices. This hypothesis is tested using an application of synthetic control methods described in Abadie et al. (2007), as well as by estimating a hedonic house price model. The results show marginally significant results from the synthetic control methodology and strong significant results from the hedonic house price estimates. These suggest that the BPAP had an effect on Mt. Pleasant housing prices as high as four percent, but this effect may be overstated due to the presence of the housing boom of the early 2000s, Charleston's status as a superstar city, and the increasing location-driven demand of the coastal area that makes it difficult to isolate the effect from the BPAP. |
