The Direct and Spillover Effects of Large-scale Affirmative Action at an Elite Brazilian University

2023/05/04 by Cecilia Machado, Machado, Cecilia, Germán Morong Reyes +3
Social Sciences · #FOS: Economics and business #General Economics (econ.GN) #School Choice and Performance

paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2305.02513

openalex publication_date 2023/05/04 · openalex created_date 2023/05/07 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/31

Abstract

We examine the effects of an affirmative action policy at an elite Brazilian university that reserved 45 percent of admission slots for Black and low-income students. We find that marginally-admitted students who enrolled through the affirmative action tracks experienced a 14 percent increase in early-career earnings. But the adoption of affirmative action also caused a large decrease in earnings for the university's most highly-ranked students. We present evidence that the negative spillover effects on highly-ranked students' earnings were driven by both a reduction in human capital accumulation and a decline in the value of networking.

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