Media Hype for Lin Stumbles on Race. By David Carr. New York Times, February 19, 2012.
The Economics of Superstars. By Sherwin Rosen. American Economic Review, December 1981.
The Matthew Effect in Science. By Robert K. Merton. Science, January 5, 1968.
The Separation of Ownership and Control in American Industry. By Gardiner C. Means. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, December 1931.
Top Executives Are Worth Every Nickel They Get. By Kevin J. Murphy. Harvard Business Review, March/April 1986.
The Age of Social Transformation. By Peter F. Drucker. The Atlantic, November 1994. Also find it here and here.
Capital Versus Talent: The Battle That’s Reshaping Business. By Roger L. Martin and Mihnea C. Molodoveanu. Harvard Business Review, July 2003. Slightly different version here.
Capital vs. Talent: The Battle Rages On. By Roger Martin. Rotman Magazine, Fall 2008. Also find it here.
The Winner-Steal-All Society. By Jerry Useem. The American Prospect, October 3, 2002. Also find it here.
Net Worth. By James Surowiecki. The New Yorker, March 15, 2005.
America Hates Crony Capitalism. By Joshua M. Brown. The Reformed Broker, December 20, 2011.
Life After Blue: The Middle Class Will Beat The Seven Trolls. By Walter Russell Mead. Via Meadia, January 30, 2013.
The Irony of Superstar Economics In a Democratic Age. By Chrystia Freeland. Plutocrats: The Rise of the New Global Super-Rich and the Fall of Everyone Else. New York: The Penguin Press, 2012, p. 140.
Freeland:
Even in
an age of tension between the 99 percent and the 1 percent, we love our
superstars. That’s ecause, as the New
York Times’s David Carr put it in a deft analysis of the popularity of basketball
player Jeremy Lin, in aspirational America, we all like to think that we are
superstars-in-waiting, on the verge of our big break: “The Lin story has broken
out into the general culture because it is aspirational in the extreme,
fulfilling notions that have nothing to do with basketball or race. Most of us
are not superstars, but we believe we could be if only given the opportunity.
We are, as a matter of practicality, a nation of supporting players, but who
among us has not secretly thought we could be at the top of our business,
company or team if the skies parted and we had our shot?” That’s the irony of
superstar economics in a democratic age. We all think we can be superstars, but
in a winner-take-all economy, there isn’t room for most of us at the top.
