That was "Peers, Heirs, and Careers: Labor Market Effects of Alumni Networks" a joint work with Alex Fischer, @tmsandoy.bsky.social, and Jeanette Walldorf.

Please, check out the full paper and my other work: sites.google.com/view/andreigorshkov/

Conclusion

- Alumni connections among business school peers shape career progression
- But they benefit more students from the most wealthy families
- Hence, they potentially reinforce inequality and impede social mobility

What do we see?

Significant career benefits from studying with more top 1% peers for students with similar backgrounds.

BUT! There are no such effects for students coming from less privileged backgrounds.

Finding 3: In general, studying with students from rich families is beneficial… for students from rich families!

Question: What is the effect of the share of the top 1% group peers on career outcomes?

(Note: here we rely on the group assignment again)

These transitions result in higher wages and better jobs.

But... The benefits are driven by descendants of the top 1% of families

Finding 2: It pays off to work with your peers!

Identification strategy: compare job transitions to former group peers to transitions to former cohort peers

(Note: here we cannot rely completely on the random assignment for identification)

(C) These jobs are often linked to their parents

(D) ❗The effect is 4x larger if both students are from the top 1% families❗

(A) Peers shape career paths -> Students choose industries, occupations, and employers in line with their peers

(B) The effect is driven by former students working in the same workplaces

Finding 1: Alumni networks work!

Identification strategy: compare a pair of students that share a tutorial group to a pair that share a cohort but not a tutorial group

(Note: the group assignment helps us to get to the causal effect)

The paper combines

1️⃣ CBS's Business Economics Program Records (since 1986): (conditionally) random tutorial group assignment graduates often come from the elite and become the elite

2️⃣ Rich Danish register data - detailed information on careers and family background

My #JMP examines whether alumni connections from elite business schools, (often dominated by students from wealthy families) benefit career advancement uniformly across students’ socio-economic backgrounds.

❗JobMarketPaper❗

Does 'knowing the right people' help to make it to the top? Absolutely! But here's the catch: it works best if you're from ‘the right’ (read: wealthy) background.