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Old Boys' Clubs and Upward Mobility Among the Educational Elite
Michelman, Valerie; Price, Joseph; Zimmerman, Seth D. - National Bureau of Economic Research - 2021
This paper studies how exclusive social groups shape upward mobility, and whether interactions between low- and high-status peers can integrate the top rungs of the economic and social ladder. Our setting is Harvard in the 1920s and 1930s, where new groups of students arriving on campus...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012496137
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The Deadweight Loss of Social Recognition
Butera, Luigi - 2019
A growing body of empirical work shows that social recognition of individuals' behavior can meaningfully influence individuals' choices. This paper studies whether social recognition is a socially efficient lever for influencing individuals' choices. Because social recognition generates utility...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012479589
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Conspicuous Consumption and Race
Charles, Kerwin Kofi - 2007
Using nationally representative data on consumption, we show that Blacks and Hispanics devote larger shares of their expenditure bundles to visible goods (clothing, jewelry, and cars) than do comparable Whites. We demonstrate that these differences exist among virtually all sub-populations, that...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012465258
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Modeling Inefficient Institutions
Acemoglu, Daron - 2006
Why do inefficient -- non-growth enhancing -- institutions emerge and persist? This paper develops a simple framework to provide some answers to this question. Political institutions determine the allocation of political power, and economic institutions determine the framework for policy-making...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012466731
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Why Don't Elite Colleges Expand Supply?
Blair, Peter Q.; Smetters, Kent A. - National Bureau of Economic Research - 2021
compete on prestige, measured using relative selectivity or relative admit rates. A key comparative static of the model is … that higher demand decreases [increases] the admit rate when the weight on prestige is above [below] a critical value … data of declining admit rates at elite colleges while counter-factual simulations without prestige fail. Prestige …
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012629529
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Diversifying Society's Leaders? The Causal Effects of Admission to Highly Selective Private Colleges
Chetty, Raj; Deming, David J.; Friedman, John N - National Bureau of Economic Research - 2023
Leadership positions in the U.S. are disproportionately held by graduates of a few highly selective private colleges. Could such colleges -- which currently have many more students from high-income families than low-income families -- increase the socioeconomic diversity of America's leaders by...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10014322879
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Persistence of Power, Elites and Institutions
Acemoglu, Daron; Robinson, James A. - 2006
We construct a model of simultaneous change and persistence in institutions. The model consists of landowning elites and workers, and the key economic decision concerns the form of economic institutions regulating the transaction of labor (e.g., competitive markets versus labor repression). The...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012466560
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Three-generation Mobility in the United States, 1850-1940 : The Role of Maternal and Paternal Grandparents
Olivetti, Claudia - 2016
This paper estimates intergenerational elasticities across three generations in the United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. We extend the methodology in Olivetti and Paserman (2015) to explore the role of maternal and paternal grandfathers for the transmission of economic status...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012456580
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Socioeconomic Status in Childhood and Health After Age 70 : A New Longitudinal Analysis for the U.S., 1895-2005
Ferrie, Joseph P. - 2011
The link between circumstances faced by individuals early in life (including those encountered in utero) and later life outcomes has been of increasing interest since the work of Barker in the 1970s on birth weight and adult disease. We provide such a life course perspective for the U.S. by...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012461642
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Effects of Restrictive Abortion Legislation on Cohort Mortality Evidence from 19th Century Law Variation
Lahey, Joanna; Wanamaker, Marianne H. - National Bureau of Economic Research - 2022
Recent studies based on 20th century US data conclude that abortion access raises children's average socioeconomic outcomes. We generalize a model of fertility, highlighting assumptions under which these abortion predictions can be reversed. Using 19th century abortion restrictions, we...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10013334419