Measuring Elite Capture of the Education Earnings Premium: The Carnoy Index

Measuring Elite Capture of the Education Earnings Premium: The Carnoy Index | Research Square window.SnipcartSettings = { analytics: { enabled: false } }; (function() { var accessVector = localStorage.getItem('access_vector') || ''; window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; if (accessVector) { window.dataLayer.push({ user: { profile: { profileInfo: { snid: accessVector } } } }); } })(); (function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src='https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-K279D39R'); Browse Preprints In Review Journals COVID-19 Preprints AJE Video Bytes Research Tools Research Promotion AJE Professional Editing AJE Rubriq About Preprint Platform In Review Editorial Policies Our Team Advisory Board Help Center Sign In Submit a Preprint Cite Share Download PDF Article Measuring Elite Capture of the Education Earnings Premium: The Carnoy Index Guilherme Lichand, Thais Takeuchi, Maria Eduarda Perpétuo, Priscila Soares This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-9075966/v1 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Posted Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Abstract One of the leading reasons behind social inequities is that elite groups have had access to more widespread and higher-quality educational opportunities much earlier, often when their economic returns were much higher. Nonetheless, inequality metrics tend to focus exclusively on contemporary differences in educational attainment or on learning gaps within the school-age population. This paper proposes a new measure –- the Carnoy index -– that captures historical and contemporary differences in the access to the economic returns of education across different groups. Concretely, the Carnoy index is the share of the cumulative education earnings premium accrued by the elite over time in excess to that accrued by other groups. The paper advances a methodology to compute the index using household survey data, and illustrates its applications by computing it along wealth, race and gender, within primary, secondary and post-secondary education, for twelve countries and territories with compatible data (1980–2011; N = 261 million). We showcase the new insights that the Carnoy index brings relative to other measures when it comes to understanding educational inequities and informing policies to address them. Social science/Social policy Social science/Education Social science/Economics Educational inequalities elite capture attainment earnings premium Full Text Additional Declarations There is NO Competing Interest. Cite Share Download PDF Status: Posted Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Research Square lets you share your work early, gain feedback from the community, and start making changes to your manuscript prior to peer review in a journal. As a division of Research Square Company, we’re committed to making research communication faster, fairer, and more useful. We do this by developing innovative software and high quality services for the global research community. Our growing team is made up of researchers and industry professionals working together to solve the most critical problems facing scientific publishing. Also discoverable on Platform About Our Team In Review Editorial Policies Advisory Board Help Center Resources Author Services Accessibility API Access RSS feed Manage Cookie Preferences © Research Square 2026 | ISSN 2693-5015 (online) Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information {"props":{"pageProps":{"initialData":{"identity":"rs-9075966","acceptedTermsAndConditions":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"archivedVersions":[],"articleType":"Article","associatedPublications":[],"authors":[{"id":603875814,"identity":"ef660d7a-04c5-43e9-8d30-69159bba850f","order_by":0,"name":"Guilherme Lichand","email":"data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAZAAAAAyAQMAAABI0h/eAAAABlBMVEX///8AAABVwtN+AAAACXBIWXMAAA7EAAAOxAGVKw4bAAAA8ElEQVRIiWNgGAWjYDACdsYGZiDF2A/m2QDxAQYGCbxamKFaZoKpNKK0gBED44YDxGqRd2Zu/FxQc0d28/nzBz8XJNjk8x1gPnibB48Ww8OMzdIzjj0z3nYjmVl6RkKa5cwDbMnWeLU0M7Yx87AdTtx2g5lBmvfHYQODAzxm0oS1/DucuLn/MPNvngSQFv5veLXIMwO18LYdTtzAkMwmDdHCw4ZXiwEz0C+8fYeNZ9xINrPmSUgzkDzMZmw5B58t7e0PP/N8Oyzb33/w8W2eBBsDvuPND2+8wWfLAQwhZjzKwbY0EFAwCkbBKBgFo4ABAOmFSy72hpDoAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC","orcid":"https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9118-1745","institution":"Stanford University","correspondingAuthor":true,"prefix":"","firstName":"Guilherme","middleName":"","lastName":"Lichand","suffix":""},{"id":603875815,"identity":"bebd5a53-c304-48cb-9d36-11269fb73e9f","order_by":1,"name":"Thais Takeuchi","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"São Paulo School of Economics","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Thais","middleName":"","lastName":"Takeuchi","suffix":""},{"id":603875816,"identity":"6a5b0918-de95-4bf0-8095-af2e107746a9","order_by":2,"name":"Maria Eduarda Perpétuo","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"Queen Mary University of London","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Maria","middleName":"Eduarda","lastName":"Perpétuo","suffix":""},{"id":603875817,"identity":"e97ce3e2-39e8-48a4-b5be-45fd2cc4a486","order_by":3,"name":"Priscila Soares","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"University of São Paulo","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Priscila","middleName":"","lastName":"Soares","suffix":""}],"badges":[],"createdAt":"2026-03-09 17:59:07","currentVersionCode":1,"declarations":"","doi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-9075966/v1","doiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-9075966/v1","draftVersion":[],"editorialEvents":[],"editorialNote":"","failedWorkflow":false,"files":[{"id":108006098,"identity":"805beabd-6881-4890-a9c9-8e27cb67960f","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2026-04-28 12:53:15","extension":"pdf","order_by":1,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"manuscript-pdf","size":13373788,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"Article File","description":"","filename":"CarnoyIndex.pdf","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-9075966/v1_covered_ed23a8a6-18c0-4aa4-a02c-e2a72cc81916.pdf"}],"financialInterests":"There is \u003cb\u003eNO\u003c/b\u003e Competing Interest.","formattedTitle":"Measuring Elite Capture of the Education Earnings Premium: The Carnoy Index","fulltext":[],"fulltextSource":"","fullText":"","funders":[],"hasAdminPriorityOnWorkflow":false,"hasManuscriptDocX":false,"hasOptedInToPreprint":true,"hasPassedJournalQc":"","hasAnyPriority":true,"hideJournal":true,"highlight":"","institution":"","isAcceptedByJournal":false,"isAuthorSuppliedPdf":true,"isDeskRejected":"","isHiddenFromSearch":false,"isInQc":false,"isInWorkflow":false,"isPdf":true,"isPdfUpToDate":true,"isWithdrawnOrRetracted":false,"journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"researchsquare","isNatureJournal":false,"hasQc":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"externalIdentity":"","sideBox":"","snPcode":"","submissionUrl":"/submission","title":"Research Square","twitterHandle":"researchsquare","acdcEnabled":true,"dfaEnabled":false,"editorialSystem":"","reportingPortfolio":"","inReviewEnabled":false,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":true},"keywords":"Educational inequalities, elite capture, attainment, earnings premium","lastPublishedDoi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-9075966/v1","lastPublishedDoiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-9075966/v1","license":{"name":"CC BY 4.0","url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"},"manuscriptAbstract":"One of the leading reasons behind social inequities is that elite groups have had access to more widespread and higher-quality educational opportunities much earlier, often when their economic returns were much higher. 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