PREFACE
The research reported here is part of the resurgence of scholarly interest
in inequality and the role of parental status in the processes by which
individuals come to occupy particular rungs in the ladder of economic
success. Interest in the subject extends far beyond academic circles, as is
indicated by the lively controversy in the United States about the appro-
priate level of taxation of inheritances and the centrality of intergenera-
tional equity in the rhetoric of the British Labour Party.
A grant from the Russell Sage Foundation to the Santa Fe Institute to
study “Persistent Inequality in a Competitive World” allowed us to con-
vene a workshop of the authors to discuss initial drafts of the papers.
We are grateful to the Foundation, and especially to Eric Wanner and
Suzanne Nichols. Other projects funded by that grant include studies of
the role of inequality as a possible impediment to cooperation in the
protection of local environmental commons, the poverty traps that con-
tribute to persistent inequality among families, nations, and ethnic
groups, and the impact of globalization on egalitarian redistribution by
nation-states. We are also grateful to Andi Sutherland, Margaret Alex-
ander, Bae Smith, Tim Taylor, and others on the staff of the Santa Fe
Institute for their contributions to this project and for the support given
to the preparation of this volume by the John D. and Catherine T. Mac-
Arthur Foundation, through the Research Network on the Nature and
Origins of Preferences. Finally, we extend our thanks to Peter Dougherty
and Tim Sullivan of Princeton University Press, who turned a compli-
cated manuscript into a beautiful book.
Samuel Bowles, Herbert Gintis,
and Melissa Osborne Groves, Santa Fe Institute
Santa Fe, New Mexico
March 2004