  We examine the effects of an affirmative action policy at an elite Brazilian
university that reserved 45 percent of admission slots for Black and low-income
students. We find that marginally-admitted students who enrolled through the
affirmative action tracks experienced a 14 percent increase in early-career
earnings. But the adoption of affirmative action also caused a large decrease
in earnings for the university's most highly-ranked students. We present
evidence that the negative spillover effects on highly-ranked students'
earnings were driven by both a reduction in human capital accumulation and a
decline in the value of networking.
