Social Status, Education, and Growth

Chaim Fershtman (), Kevin Murphy and Yoram Weiss

Journal of Political Economy, 1996, vol. 104, issue 1, 108-32

Abstract: This paper investigates the implications of social rewards on the allocation of talent in society and consequently on the process of economic growth. The authors consider two sources of heterogeneity among workers: nonwage income and innate ability. A greater emphasis on status may induce the 'wrong' individuals, that is, those with low ability and high wealth, to acquire schooling, causing workers with high ability and low wealth to leave the growth-enhancing industries. This crowding-out effect, taken alone, discourages growth. Growth may be enhanced by a more egalitarian distribution of wealth, which reduces the demand for status. Copyright 1996 by University of Chicago Press.

Date: 1996
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (197)

Downloads: (external link)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/262019 full text (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers. See http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/JPE for details.

Related works:
Working Paper: Social Status, Education and Growth (1993)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ucp:jpolec:v:104:y:1996:i:1:p:108-32

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Journal of Political Economy from University of Chicago Press
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Journals Division ().