Investing in Human Capital

Cosimo Perrotta

Chapter Chapter 8 in Human Capital, 2023, pp 141-156 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract Economists have always been aware that development is led by investments in education and skill, that is, by human capital. However, mass workers were excluded from such investments by classical and Marxist authors due to their postulates: the tendency of wages to the subsistence level and the separation between wage and luxury goods. List, J.S. Mill and Marshall among others stressed the central role of education in long-run development, but they did not propose specific policies. Keynes was mainly concerned with the short run. Then the post-industrial part of today’s economy has emerged without the support of theory and even less of a suitable policy. This has produced the semi-failure of its take-off and huge destruction of human capital. This chapter first sums up the main reflections on education before 1960 economics (Sect. 1); then it deals with the theories and policies of human capital during and after the welfare state boom (Sect. 2); in Sect. 3, it treats the present mass destruction of human capital; finally, it gives some prospects for the future (Sect. 4).

Keywords: Education; Skill; Post-industrial economy; Human capital (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:sprchp:978-3-031-34494-7_8

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DOI: 10.1007/978-3-031-34494-7_8

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