First-Generation Elite: The Role of School Social Networks

High school students from non-elite backgrounds are less likely to have peers with elite-educated parents than their elite counterparts.

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)