IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hal/spmain/hal-05478188.html

The costs of meritocraty: an agent-based model of education, inequality and growth

Author

Listed:
  • Hannah Engljaehringer

    (Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna di Pisa - Institute of Economics)

  • Mauro Napoletano

    (GREDEG - Groupe de Recherche en Droit, Economie et Gestion - UNS - Université Nice Sophia Antipolis (1965 - 2019) - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - UniCA - Université Côte d'Azur, OFCE - Observatoire français des conjonctures économiques (Sciences Po) - Sciences Po - Sciences Po, SSSA - Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna, UniCA - Université Côte d'Azur)

  • Elisa Palagi

    (SSSUP - Scuola Universitaria Superiore Sant'Anna = Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies [Pisa])

  • Andrea Roventini

    (SSSUP - Scuola Universitaria Superiore Sant'Anna = Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies [Pisa])

Abstract

This paper presents a novel agent-based framework to examine the impact of access to education on distributional and macroeconomic outcomes. We simulate a meritocratic economy where households' financial prospects and labour productivity depend on their ability to obtain education. By doing so, we show how unequal access to education exacerbates personal income and wealth inequality, hinders social mobility, and dampens economic growth—highlighting the hidden costs of meritocracy. Conversely, policy interventions aimed at broadening educational access and reducing disparities in income can promote more inclusive economic growth and enhance social mobility. These results underscore the critical role of predistributive policies in promoting both equity and long-term economic performance.

Suggested Citation

  • Hannah Engljaehringer & Mauro Napoletano & Elisa Palagi & Andrea Roventini, 2025. "The costs of meritocraty: an agent-based model of education, inequality and growth," Sciences Po Economics Publications (main) hal-05478188, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:spmain:hal-05478188
    DOI: 10.2139/ssrn.4947795
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a
    for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    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:hal:spmain:hal-05478188. 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: Contact - Sciences Po Department of Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/ .

    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.