Juliana Londoño-Vélez
The impact of diversity on distributive perceptions and preferences for redistribution
Abstract: Does socioeconomic diversity affect people’s perceptions of income distribution and redistributive preferences? I leverage a massive financial aid reform that drastically boosted the share of low-income students at elite universities in Colombia. Unlike affirmative action, the admissions process remained unaffected, which enables identifying the causal effect of diversity. I survey high-income students and compare outcomes across students entering college before vs. after policy rollout and more vs. less exposed to low-income peers. A difference-in-differences approach shows diversity caused high-income students to have more accurate perceptions of poverty and inequality, raising their concerns about fairness and boosting support for progressive redistribution.
• The Impact of Emergency Cash Assistance in a Pandemic: Experimental Evidence from Colombia (with Pablo Querubin), Review of Economics and Statistics, Forthcoming• Enforcing Wealth Taxes in the Developing World: Quasi-Experimental Evidence from Colombia (with Javier Avila-Mahecha), American Economic Review: Insights, June 2021• Upstream and Downstream Impacts of College Merit-Based Financial Aid for Low-Income Students: Ser Pilo Paga in Colombia (with Fabio Sánchez and Catherine Rodríguez), American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, May 2020