Elite illusion in Argentina? Causal evidence from a one-time lottery admission in an elite secondary school

Last registered on September 21, 2026
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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Elite illusion in Argentina? Causal evidence from a one-time lottery admission in an elite secondary school
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0019529
Initial registration date
September 03, 2026

Initial registration date is when the trial was registered.

It corresponds to when the registration was submitted to the Registry to be reviewed for publication.

First published
September 21, 2026, 6:42 AM EDT

First published corresponds to when the trial was first made public on the Registry after being reviewed.

Locations

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Primary Investigator

Name
Genaro Martín Damiani
Affiliation
Universidad de San Andrés
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Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name
Milena Poggiese
PI Affiliation
Universidad Nacional del Sur
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PI Name
Juan Cruz de Mendonça Acevedo
PI Affiliation
Universidad Nacional de La Plata
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Additional Trial Information

Status
In development
Start date
2026-09-28
End date
2026-12-31
Keywords
Education, Labor
Additional Keywords
JEL code(s)
I25, I26, J24, J62
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
We estimate the causal effect of attending an elite secondary school in a mid-sized city of a developing country on students' higher-education decisions and social capital. In 2020, the pandemic prevented the administration of the entrance exam to the Escuelas Medias de la Universidad Nacional del Sur (EMUNS), in Bahía Blanca, Argentina, and seats were instead allocated by lottery: 208 winners and 574 losers among 782 applicants, whom we survey in their final year of secondary school. Three confirmatory hypotheses structure the inference: the intention to pursue higher education, the perceived returns to higher education, and the economic connectedness of friendship networks. We estimate Intention-to-Treat (ITT) and Local Average Treatment Effects (LATE); heterogeneity by gender is pre-specified as exploratory.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
de Mendonça Acevedo, Juan Cruz, Genaro Martín Damiani and Milena Poggiese. 2026. "Elite illusion in Argentina? Causal evidence from a one-time lottery admission in an elite secondary school." AEA RCT Registry. September 21. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.19529-1.0
Sponsors & Partners
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
Data collection consists of a 20–30 minute in-person survey administered in classrooms at the receiving schools (estimated at 40) and at the EMUNS, complemented by a form completed by the principal or the class supervisor (preceptor) of each class section.
Intervention Start Date
2026-09-28
Intervention End Date
2026-12-31

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
(i) Intention to pursue higher education (university-level)
(ii) Economic connectedness
Primary Outcomes (explanation)
(i) Binary outcome; =1 if the student declares intention to pursue higher education, =0 if not.
(ii) We follow Chetty et al. (2022) and define economic connectedness as the proportion of friends living in neighborhoods with low SES.

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
(iii) Expected return to education
(iv) Intention to pursue a STEM degree
(v) Subjective probability of completing a high-education degree
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)
(iii) log difference between expected monthly income at 30 years if completed higher education and if not
(iv) Binary outcome; =1 if the student declares intention to pursue a STEM degree, =0 if not
(v) Reported probability of completing a high-education degree if the student pursues it (0-10 discrete scale)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
We exploit a public lottery that randomly definede which EMUNS applicants were offered a seat on the school. This lottery took place on Friday, September 11, 2020, and was held using the City Lottery (Quiniela Nocturna) of Bahia Blanca. This draw is the source of exogenous variation in the study. From among the 782 applicants for admission to the EMUNS, 208 children aged 10 and 11 were randomly offered a seat.

The unit of analysis is the group of individuals registered for the lottery. The treatment group consists of the 208 winners, and the control group comprises the 574 losers. The treatment consists of attending the pre-university school during secondary education (2021–2026).

We regress each of the pre-registered outcomes on the binary treatment variable and covariates. Our covariates include gender, month of birth (binary, =1 if born before 30th June, =0 otherwise), SES of the attended elementary school (binary, =1 if located in a high SES neighborhood, =0 otherwise), address
Experimental Design Details
Not available
Randomization Method
Public lottery, conduced by Lotería de la Ciudad
Randomization Unit
Student
Was the treatment clustered?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
782 students
Sample size: planned number of observations
782 students
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
782 students
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
Assuming α = 0.05 (two-sided), power = 0.80, P = 0.266, N = 782, and no attrition, the minimum detectable effect is 0.23 standard deviations of the outcome.
Supporting Documents and Materials

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IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
Research Ethics Committee CEDLAS (REC-CEDLAS)
IRB Approval Date
2026-08-25
IRB Approval Number
CEDLAS-CE-0008
Analysis Plan