Abstract:

Universities play an important role in promoting local economic growth, especially in the urbanization process in recent years. Taking advantage of the arguably exogenous policy shocks of new satellite campuses and the micro-transaction data of land and housing in Beijing, this paper uses a quasi-experiment design to explore the impact of universities on real estate prices. The findings show that: first, the newly built satellite campus has a significant positive impact on the prices of commercial and residential land within 5 km. Second, the more newly built satellite campuses, the closer the new campuses are to the city center, and the higher the land price. Third, only public universities can significantly increase the price of newly built commercial housing within 3 km radius, while non-public universities have no significant effect on the housing price. Therefore, it is necessary to form a long-term mechanism involving multiple subjects (such as universities, local governments and social forces), to link the construction of new satellite campuses closely with the local economic growth, and to promote the more sustainable interaction between the new satellite campuses and the local economic growth.

Key words: new university satellite campus, land price, housing price, real estate prices, quasi-experiment design