Consumers’ Valuation of Level and Egalitarian Education Attainment of Schools in England

This paper investigates the willingness of households to pay for level (mean score) and egalitarian (deprivation compensating) components of the Contextual Value Added (CVA) indicator of school quality, which is used in England. Semi-parametric and parametric analysis shows that consumers are willing to pay for houses in the catchment area of primary and secondary schools with high academic achievement as measures by mean score; whereas, the component of the CVA indicating egalitarian education attainment is found to have zero and negative valuation at primary and secondary education levels, respectively. The implications of our findings for recently proposed changes in school funding policy to combat education inequalities are discussed.