The Long-Term Impacts of Mixing the Rich and Poor: Evidence from Conscript Dorms
利用芬兰征兵中宿舍分配的准自然实验，发现与高收入家庭室友同住能提升个人长期收入，尤其对高收入背景者效果显著，支持劳动力市场网络机制。
To what extent is economic success determined by with whom individuals interact socially? We tackle this question by exploiting a large-scale natural experiment in the Finnish conscription. Our research design is based on the alphabetization of dorms, which is shown to induce as good as random variation in peer composition. Dormmates from high-income families have a positive impact on earnings, with the largest effect among individuals from high-income families. For them, a one standard deviation increase in dormmates' parental income increases long-term earnings by 5.7 percent. The results support labor market networks among the rich as the key mechanism.