Education and Social Mobility : How Well Do CEO Elites do?

Income distribution and the degree of intergenerational mobility is strongly connected to education. Elites emerge and may block students with more innate ability. CEOs sit in the very top echelon of income distribution and benefit from parental and other advantages. They are therefore an interesting group to study in just how costly these social barriers might be. The stock market is a harsh judge, and CEOs’ earlier privileges count for very little if they don’t perform well. They are in a sense cut loose to see how they might do in the real world. What sort of education, if any, might prepare them to perform well? Does education from the most prestigious institutions, where entry is influenced by parental income and connections prepare them well anyway or, alternatively, is the net effect that students with more ability are held back with costs for company performance (and by implication the economy). The United States, France and Sweden with very different social organisation are chosen to study this issue. Measurement based on stock market judgements are provided. The results show that societies where the intellectual elites are valued most highly have the worst CEO performance