Carlo Schwarz (Bocconi University) will present his work on "Climbing the Ivory Tower: How Socio-Economic Background Shapes Academia" at the Research Seminar in Economics at the School of Business and Economics.

Abstract: 

This paper explores the impact of socio-economic background on academic careers in the United States. We construct a novel dataset that links the near-universe of US academics to full-count censuses, allowing for a comprehensive analysis of the relationship between parental occupation, socio-economic status, and academic outcomes. We document a severe underrepresentation of children from lower socioeconomic backgrounds among academics. We also document significant variations in socio-economic selectivity by academic discipline and university. Conditional on making it to academia, there are no differences in careers and scientific productivity, indicating that the initial selection process may play a crucial role in determining one‘s academic success. Additionally, we show that socioeconomic background influences a scientist‘s choice of subfield and, thereby, the direction of research.