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First-Generation Elite: The Role of School Social Networks

Sarah Cattan¹; Kjell G. Salvanes²; Emma Tominey³

¹ Institute for Fiscal Studies and IZA (email: ) · ² Department of Economics, Norwegian School of Economics, FAIR, CEPR, CESifo, HCEO, and IZA (email: ) · ³ Department of Economics, University of York, HCEO, FAIR, and IZA (email: )

High school students from non-elite backgrounds are less likely to have peers with elite-educated parents than their elite counterparts. This difference in social capital is a key driver of the high intergenerational persistence in elite education. We identify a positive elite peer effect on enrollment in elite programs and labor market earnings, then disentangle underlying mechanisms. Exploiting a lottery in assessment, a causal mediation analysis shows the overall positive peer effect reflects a positive effect on application behavior (conditional on GPA). When considering income mobility, we find that further mixing between high school elite and non-elite students could improve mobility. (JEL D31, I21, I23, I24, J31, J62, Z13)

DOI

10.1257/aer.20230582

Volume

115 (12)

Pages

4369-4403

Language

en

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