Assessment of Public Services Distribution in African Urban Areas: a Cost-Benefit Analysis Based on Bid Rents from Spatial Interaction Models

The paper proposes a cost-benefit analysis of alternative school networks that are otimized to cover the territory of the central part of Huambo Municipality in Angola. Benefits comes from increases in housing prices associated with changes in employment generated by schools, evaluated by variations in values of real estate estimated by the bid-rents of a spatial interaction model using hedonic regression methods. Costs are associated with construction and functioning of schools. The more advisable school networks alternatives are the ones that optimize the coverage of the region with education services while securing individual viability of each one of the schools.