The Rise of Human Capital Theory

Blair Fix

EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, 2021, issue 95, 29-41

Abstract: Today, human capital theory dominates the study of personal income. But this has not always been so. In this essay, I chart the rise of human capital theory, and compare it to the rise (and fall) of eugenics. The comparison, I argue, is an apt one. Eugenics and human capital theory both focus on isolated traits of individuals. By doing so, both theories neglect the social nature of human behavior.

Keywords: eugenic; human capital; income distribution; power; productivity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J24 O15 P16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/232308/1/2 ... ital_theory_rwer.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:espost:232308

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters from ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics ().