The article contests an argument that the creation of a capital market in educational "human capital" and subsequent voluntary transactions on this market are sufficient to create equal opportunities in education, consequently reducing the income premium enjoyed by households with higher initial...

The aim of the paper is to set the agency problem into a broad context of New Institutional Economics with an emphasis on historical connections. In the first section, I explain the historical evolution of basic theoretical concepts like the theory of firm, the theory of market process and the...