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The Allocation of Talent: Implications for Growth

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  • Murphy, Kevin M
  • Shleifer, Andrei
  • Vishny, Robert W

Abstract

A country's most talented people typically organize production by others, so they can spread their ability advantage over a larger scale. When the start firms, they innovate and foster growth, but when they become rent seekers, they only redistribute wealth and reduce growth. Occupational choice depends on returns to ability and to scale in each sector, on market size, and on compensation contracts. In most countries, rent seeking rewards talent more than entrepreneurship does, leading to stagnation. Our evidence shows that countries with a higher proportion of engineering college majors grows faster; whereas countries with a higher proportion of law concentrators grows more slowly. Copyright 1991, the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

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Bibliographic Info

Article provided by MIT Press in its journal Quarterly Journal of Economics.

Volume (Year): 106 (1991)
Issue (Month): 2 (May)
Pages: 503-30

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Handle: RePEc:tpr:qjecon:v:106:y:1991:i:2:p:503-30

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  1. Robert J. Barro, 1991. "Economic Growth in a Cross Section of Countries," NBER Working Papers 3120, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  2. Baumol, William J, 1990. "Entrepreneurship: Productive, Unproductive, and Destructive," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 98(5), pages 893-921, October.
  3. Krueger, Anne O, 1974. "The Political Economy of the Rent-Seeking Society," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 64(3), pages 291-303, June.
  4. Shleifer, Andrei & Vishny, Robert W, 1986. "Large Shareholders and Corporate Control," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 94(3), pages 461-88, June.
  5. Robert E. Lucas Jr., 1978. "On the Size Distribution of Business Firms," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 9(2), pages 508-523, Autumn.
  6. Kuhn, Peter, 1988. "Unions in a General Equilibrium Model of Firm Formation," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 6(1), pages 62-82, January.
  7. Rosen, Sherwin, 1981. "The Economics of Superstars," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 71(5), pages 845-58, December.
  8. Summers, Robert & Heston, Alan, 1988. "A New Set of International Comparisons of Real Product and Price Levels Estimates for 130 Countries, 1950-1985," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 34(1), pages 1-25, March.
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  1. Le risorse per la crescita
    by lippi1968 in Noise from Amerika on 2012-07-01 22:12:38
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