IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/abc/gakuep/58-3-1.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Talent vs. Wealth in a Credentials-Based Meritocracy: A Theoretical Study

Author

Listed:
  • Dimitry Rtischev

Abstract

A meritocracy is modeled as a multiple-prize contest among agents who are heterogeneously endowed with talent and wealth and thus vary in the disutility of exerting effort and spending money to earn credentials. In equilibrium many richer but less-talented agents obtain better credentials than many poorer but more-talented ones. The paper studies the cost of the credentials race as well as the difference between the set of winning agents and the set of most-talented agents. Findings indicate that a meritocracy that relies on earned credentials may degenerate into a mediocracy that favors the wealthy and leaves the winners with little gain net of the cost of their credentials.

Suggested Citation

  • Dimitry Rtischev, 2021. "Talent vs. Wealth in a Credentials-Based Meritocracy: A Theoretical Study," Gakushuin Economic Papers, Gakushuin University, Faculty of Economics, vol. 58(3), pages 187-202.
    • Handle: RePEc:abc:gakuep:58-3-1
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.gakushuin.ac.jp/univ/eco/gakkai/pdf_files/keizai_ronsyuu/contents/contents2021/5803/5803rtischev/5803rtischev.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Keywords

    meritocracy; credentialism; education; contest; socioeconomic competition;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C72 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Noncooperative Games
    • D11 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Economics: Theory
    • I24 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Education and Inequality
    • Z13 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Economic Sociology; Economic Anthropology; Language; Social and Economic Stratification

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:abc:gakuep:58-3-1. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Dimitry Rtischev (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/fegakjp.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.