The average CEO earned 20 times what the average worker did in 1965 by the 2000s, the ratio had grown to more than 300 to 1, where it has remained since.Ĭities have been caught up in this winner-take-all phenomenon, too. In the roughly four decades spanning from 1978 to 2015, CEO pay increased by more than 940 percent, while that of a typical worker grew by just 10 percent. The earnings gap between CEOs and the average worker soared. Frank and Cook saw this winner-take-all phenomenon spreading throughout the broader economy, as large pay disparities appeared in industries ranging from consulting, banking, and management to design, fashion, medicine, and law.
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The rudiments of the theory are evident in the labor market for professional athletes: As high as the salary of the average athlete may be, the pay gap between middling players and superstars is enormous. Cook popularized the concept of the winner-take-all economy and society. Almost 20 years ago, the economists Robert H. While that phrase is my own coinage, the broader phenomenon of winner-take-all economics has been recognized for quite a while. This process is one I like to call winner-take-all urbanism. This small group of elite places forge ever forward, while most others struggle, stagnate, or fall behind. The most important and innovative industries and the most talented, most ambitious, and wealthiest people are converging as never before in a relative handful of leading superstar cities that are knowledge and tech hubs. Sound familiar? The futuristic city might be an in-game fiction, but the basic dilemma that the game describes is playing out in real cities today. To succeed, players must find and navigate the precarious path between those two equally unpalatable urban alternatives. Too little growth, and the city devolves into dystopian squalor too much, and it becomes so unequal that its citizens can hardly afford to live in it. The mayor can do things to limit their power, but only at the risk of stifling the city’s economic growth. In Cities of Tomorrow’s grim future, there is a technologically advanced infrastructure that’s owned by an elite cadre known as ControlNet. At Work, Expertise Is Falling Out of Favor Jerry Useem