  What happens if selective colleges change their admission policies? We study
this question by analyzing the world's first implementation of nationally
centralized meritocratic admissions in the early twentieth century. We find a
persistent meritocracy-equity tradeoff. Compared to the decentralized system,
the centralized system admitted more high-achievers and produced more
occupational elites (such as top income earners) decades later in the labor
market. This gain came at a distributional cost, however. Meritocratic
centralization also increased the number of urban-born elites relative to
rural-born ones, undermining equal access to higher education and career
advancement.
