Asian immigrants, school quality, and the U.S. housing market

This paper investigates how Asian immigrants affect U.S. housing prices and identifies the mechanisms underlying these effects. Using annual county-level data from 2009 to 2018 and a dual instrumental variable approach, we decompose the overall impact of Asian immigrants into education-related and non-education channels. We find that roughly 30%–40% of the housing price increase associated with Asian immigration is driven by the capitalization of improved educational amenities, while the remaining 60%–70% reflects non-education forces, such as home-biased foreign capital inflows and other neighborhood changes. The education-related capitalization effects are greater in counties with a higher share of Asian school-aged children, underscoring the key insight that immigrant composition — specifically, who arrives — matters for how immigration shapes local housing markets.