Working Paper: NBER ID: w28583
Authors: Valerie Michelman; Joseph Price; Seth D. Zimmerman
Abstract: This paper studies how exclusive social groups shape upward mobility and whether inter-actions between low- and high-status peers can integrate the top rungs of the economic and social ladders. Our setting is Harvard in the 1920s and 1930s, where new groups of students arriving on campus encountered a social system centered on exclusive old boys’ clubs. Combining archival and Census records, we first show that students from prestigious private feeder schools are overrepresented in old boys’ clubs, while academic high achievers and ethnic minorities are almost completely absent. Club members earn 32% more than other students and are more likely to work in finance and join country clubs, both characteristic of the era’s elite. We then use random variation in room assignment to show that exposure to high-status peers expands gaps in college club membership, adult social club membership, and finance careers by high school type, with large positive effects for private school students and zero or negative effects for others. To conclude, we turn to more recent cohorts. We show that the link between exclusive college clubs and finance careers persists across the 20th century even as Harvard diversifies, and that elite university students from the highest-income families continue to out-earn their peers.
Keywords: upward mobility; social groups; elite universities; peer interactions; old boys clubs
JEL Codes: I24; I26; J24
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| high school background (I23) | club membership (D71) |
| club membership (D71) | economic outcomes (F61) |
| exposure to high-status peers (I24) | club membership (D71) |
| exposure to high-status peers (I24) | career trajectories (J62) |
| high-status peer interactions (Z13) | pathways to success (I24) |
| high-status peer interactions (Z13) | perpetuation of inequality (I24) |