{"id":3076,"date":"2025-01-09T10:55:50","date_gmt":"2025-01-09T10:55:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bullseye.ac\/blog\/?p=3076"},"modified":"2025-01-09T10:55:52","modified_gmt":"2025-01-09T10:55:52","slug":"the-premium-of-being-the-best-in-competitive-markets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bullseye.ac\/blog\/philosophy-literature\/the-premium-of-being-the-best-in-competitive-markets\/","title":{"rendered":"The Premium of Being the Best in Competitive Markets"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Number of words: 150<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In a seminal 1981 paper, the economist Sherwin Rosen worked out the mathematics behind these \u201cwinner-take-all\u201d markets. One of his key insights was to explicitly model talent\u2014labeled, innocuously, with the variable <em>q<\/em> in his formulas\u2014as a factor with \u201cimperfect substitution,\u201d which Rosen explains as follows: \u201cHearing a succession of mediocre singers does not add up to a single outstanding performance.\u201d<a><\/a>In other words, talent is not a commodity you can buy in bulk and combine to reach the needed levels: There\u2019s a premium to being the best. Therefore, if you\u2019re in a marketplace where the consumer has access to all performers, and everyone\u2019s <em>q<\/em> value is clear, the consumer will choose the very best. Even if the talent advantage of the best is small compared to the next rung down on the skill ladder, the superstars still win the bulk of the market.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Excerpted from\u201dDeep Work\u201d by Cal Newport.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Number of words: 150 In a seminal 1981 paper, the economist Sherwin Rosen worked out the mathematics behind these \u201cwinner-take-all\u201d markets. One of his key insights was to explicitly model talent\u2014labeled, innocuously, with the variable q in his formulas\u2014as a factor with \u201cimperfect substitution,\u201d which Rosen explains as follows: \u201cHearing a succession of mediocre singers &#8230; <a title=\"The Premium of Being the Best in Competitive Markets\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/bullseye.ac\/blog\/philosophy-literature\/the-premium-of-being-the-best-in-competitive-markets\/\" aria-label=\"More on The Premium of Being the Best in Competitive Markets\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_eb_attr":"","_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[22,12],"tags":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Premium of Being the Best in Competitive Markets - BullsEye<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/bullseye.ac\/blog\/philosophy-literature\/the-premium-of-being-the-best-in-competitive-markets\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Premium of Being the Best in Competitive Markets - BullsEye\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Number of words: 150 In a seminal 1981 paper, the economist Sherwin Rosen worked out the mathematics behind these \u201cwinner-take-all\u201d markets. 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