Meritocracy and the inheritance of advantage
研究信息准确性如何通过统计歧视加剧收入不平等和代际固化，发现精英统治反而降低社会流动性，因为能力与背景高度相关。
Abstract We present a model where more accurate information on the background of individuals facilitates statistical discrimination, increasing inequality and intergenerational persistence in income. Surprisingly, more accurate information on the actual capabilities of workers leads to the same result—firms give increased weight to the more accurate information, increasing inequality, which itself fosters discrimination. The rich take advantage of this through educational investments in their children, and mobility decreases as a consequence of an increase in the ability to reward talent. Using our model to interpret the data suggests that a country like the US might indeed be a land of opportunity for the sufficiently able, as conditional on ability background may have relatively little effect. Nevertheless the US has a relatively low degree of intergenerational mobility precisely because meritocracy facilitates a high correlation of ability with background.