We survey the determinants of earnings and propose a framework for understanding labor market success. We suggest that the advantages of the children of successful parents go considerably beyond the benefits of superior education, the inheritance of wealth, or the genetic inheritance of...

Suppose there is a principal-agent relationship between employer and employee in which effort is not contractible, but is elicited through employer incentive mechanisms. We term preferences that allow the employer to elicit effort at lower cost incentive enhancing. We analyze how such...