Parents care about their children, spend resources on educating them and bequeath them some physical and/or human capital. Here we argue that the actions of the parents have an influence, not only on the productive possibilities open to the children (through the capital they inherit) but also on...

We present a model where the probability distribution over the space of an agent's achievements depends not only on her ability and effort, but also on the goals set for her. The agent chooses her effort according to her utility net of perceived cost of effort. This cost is inversely...