We investigate whether the decision of young adults on when to leave the parental home is influenced by the number of siblings they have, in the context of European countries over the last seventy years. Using data from two large surveys and exploiting random variation in sibship size induced by twin births, we identify the causal effect of having an extra sibling on the timing of home-leaving. We find that one additional sibling speeds up the transition to independent living by roughly six months. We provide evidence that our results directly stem from a decrease in the value of intergenerational coresidence implied by having an extra sibling.

The established consensus from a large worldwide literature is that access to a ‘better’ school increases local property prices, which is typically interpreted as reflecting parents’ demand for school quality. We show that this relationship does not hold universally. Replicating the boundary discontinuity design, which compares property prices on either side of a catchment area boundary, we show that the effect of access to the ‘better’ school are concentrated. Price premiums are large in the minority of areas where the difference in quality between schools across the boundary is large, but are not evident elsewhere. Exploring other dimensions of heterogeneity, we find that households are willing to pay to avoid schools at the bottom of the distribution, as well as reach the top. A sufficiently affluent school peer-group is a necessary condition for higher school test scores to raise prices.