IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ctl/louvde/v81y2015i1p27-31.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Gary Becker on Human Capital

Author

Listed:
  • Yoram WEISS

    (The Berglas School of Economics)

Abstract

Gary Becker’s work on “human capital” started around 1960. It was motivated by the rising interest in economic growth at the time. As stated in the introduction to the first edition of his book, Human Capital, “The origin of this study can be traced to the finding that a substantial growth in incomes in the US remains after the growth of physical capital and labor has been accounted for”. This unexplained residual suggested to several researchers that unmeasured features of the quality of the labor force must also be brought into consideration. While econometricians such as Edward Denison, Dale Jorgenson, and Zvi Griliches turned to seek better data that would reduce the scope of the unexplained residual, Becker constructed a detailed and original theory regarding the possible effects of a major unobserved and all inclusive factor, termed, human capital, would have on observed outcomes such as wages and education and their variation over time and among individual types. Most of the theoretical results reported in the three editions of Human Capital, 1964, 1975, and 1995 are already anticipated in a single early paper that was published in the Journal of Political Economy in 1962.

Suggested Citation

  • Yoram WEISS, 2015. "Gary Becker on Human Capital," JODE - Journal of Demographic Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 81(1), pages 27-31, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:ctl:louvde:v:81:y:2015:i:1:p:27-31
    DOI: 10.1017/dem.2014.4
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/dem.2014.4
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1017/dem.2014.4?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Jelnov, Pavel & Weiss, Yoram, 2022. "Influence in economics and aging," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    2. Ramirez Chaparro, Maria Nathalia & Chacón Mejía, Catalina, 2021. "Human Capital and Inequality: A Cointegration Analysis for Colombia for the last 29 years," MPRA Paper 109508, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Krykliy Olena, 2023. "The Role of Education in the Development of Human Capital: A Bibliometric Analysis of Literature Outputs in 1990–2023," Journal of Intercultural Management, Sciendo, vol. 15(3), pages 107-124, September.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ctl:louvde:v:81:y:2015:i:1:p:27-31. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sebastien SCHILLINGS (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/iruclbe.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.