No time for losers. In certain jobs, the market pays individuals not according to their absolute performance but according to their performance relative to others. The income of window cleaners depends upon how many windows they clean, but investment bankers’ pay may depend upon their performance ranking. Slightly more talented window cleaners will make only a small difference to the transparency of their customers’ windows, but in the markets for selling bonds that slight edge can mean everything. Rewards at the top are therefore disproportionately high, and rewards below the top are disproportionately low. People in these professions are often willing to work for very little just to have the chance to compete for the top job and the jackpot that comes with it. This sort of economics has long been prevalent in celebrity-dominated businesses such as entertainment and sport. But this reward structure is spreading to more and more occupations, including journalism, the law, medicine and corporate management. Globalization has expanded the market for skills, increasing the opportunities for the rich to become even richer. In a normal market, sumptuous superstar incomes would attract competition from more applicants to do the jobs that pay them. This would then bring salaries down to less exotic levels. In a winner-takes-all market, this does not happen. An investment bank wants the best analysts and dealers; second best will not do. It can also afford to pay. Some economists believe that because of more liberalized markets there will be growing inequality in most professions and the emergence of a winner-takes-all society.