PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Billings, Stephen B.
AU  - Macartney, Hugh
AU  - Park, Geunyong
AU  - Singleton, John D.
TI  - Selection into Public Service
AID  - 10.3368/jhr.1024-13901R2
DP  - 2026 Jul 13
TA  - Journal of Human Resources
PG  - 1024-13901R2
4099  - http://jhr.uwpress.org/content/early/2026/07/02/jhr.1024-13901R2.short
4100  - http://jhr.uwpress.org/content/early/2026/07/02/jhr.1024-13901R2.full
AB  - In this paper, we use narrowly-decided elections and housing transactions data to test for private returns from public office in the context of school boards in the U.S. We find no detectable effect of election to the school board on home prices in the neighborhoods of winning candidates. Stratifying by political affiliation reveals that homes appreciate in winning Republicans’ neighborhoods, but the estimate is not statistically robust. We do not find corresponding evidence for improvements in local school productivity, but we show that neighborhood public schools of Republican members also shift to serving more white students through attendance zone adjustments.