This volume was prepared by Jens Ruhose while he was working at the Ifo Institute. It was completed in December 2014 and accepted as a doctoral thesis by the Department of Economics at the University of Munich. It includes four self-contained chapters that contribute to the understanding of the...

This thesis is concerned with a possible answer to the question of why we should care about inequality: children. A child can no less choose its parents than it can choose its gender or ethnicity. One cannot fault a child for their choice of school, lack of resources or absence of role models....