IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/fip/fedmsr/447.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Comment on Christian’s “Human Capital Accounting in the United States: 1994–2006”

Author

Listed:
  • Ellen R. McGrattan

Abstract

Michael Christian's paper presents a human capital account for the United States for the period 1994 to 2006. The main findings are twofold. First, the total human capital stock is about three-quarters of a quadrillion dollars in 2006. This estimate is roughly 55 times gross domestic product (GDP) and 16 times the net stock of fixed assets plus consumer durables. His second finding is that the measures of gross investment in human capital are sensitive to alternative assumptions about enrollment patterns. In my comments, I emphasize the need for greater interaction between human capital accountants and applied economists. To date, there remains a disconnect between those measuring human wealth and those investigating its economic impact.

Suggested Citation

  • Ellen R. McGrattan, 2010. "Comment on Christian’s “Human Capital Accounting in the United States: 1994–2006”," Staff Report 447, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedmsr:447
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.minneapolisfed.org/research/sr/SR447.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: http://www.minneapolisfed.org/publications_papers/pub_display.cfm?id=4444
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jagannathan, Ravi & Wang, Zhenyu, 1996. "The Conditional CAPM and the Cross-Section of Expected Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 51(1), pages 3-53, March.
    2. Campbell, John Y, 1996. "Understanding Risk and Return," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 104(2), pages 298-345, April.
    3. Carol Corrado & Charles Hulten & Daniel Sichel, 2005. "Measuring Capital and Technology: An Expanded Framework," NBER Chapters, in: Measuring Capital in the New Economy, pages 11-46, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Carol Corrado & Charles Hulten & Daniel Sichel, 2009. "Intangible Capital And U.S. Economic Growth," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 55(3), pages 661-685, September.
    5. Hanno Lustig & Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh, 2008. "The Returns on Human Capital: Good News on Wall Street is Bad News on Main Street," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 21(5), pages 2097-2137, September.
    6. Shiller, Robert J., 1995. "Aggregate income risks and hedging mechanisms," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 35(2), pages 119-152.
    7. Zvi Griliches, 1992. "Output Measurement in the Service Sectors," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number gril92-1.
    8. Dale W. Jorgenson & Barbara M. Fraumeni, 1992. "The Output of the Education Sector," NBER Chapters, in: Output Measurement in the Service Sectors, pages 303-341, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Robert Shimer, 2009. "Convergence in Macroeconomics: The Labor Wedge," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 1(1), pages 280-297, January.
    10. Ignacio Palacios-Huerta, 2003. "An Empirical Analysis of the Risk Properties of Human Capital Returns," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(3), pages 948-964, June.
    11. John W. Kendrick, 1976. "The Formation and Stocks of Total Capital," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number kend76-1.
    12. Becker, Gary S, 1988. "Family Economics and Macro Behavior," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 78(1), pages 1-13, March.
    13. Card, David, 2001. "Estimating the Return to Schooling: Progress on Some Persistent Econometric Problems," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 69(5), pages 1127-1160, September.
    14. Jacob A. Mincer, 1974. "Schooling and Earnings," NBER Chapters, in: Schooling, Experience, and Earnings, pages 41-63, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Jacob A. Mincer, 1974. "Schooling, Experience, and Earnings," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number minc74-1.
    16. Carol Corrado & John Haltiwanger & Daniel Sichel, 2005. "Measuring Capital in the New Economy," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number corr05-1.
    17. Jerik Hanushek & Dennis Kimko, 2006. "Schooling, Labor-force Quality, and the Growth of Nations," Voprosy obrazovaniya / Educational Studies Moscow, National Research University Higher School of Economics, issue 1, pages 154-193.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Lee, Jaeram & Ihm, Jungjoon & Ryu, Doojin, 2017. "Human capital measures and stock return predictability: Macroeconomic versus microeconomic approaches," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 21(C), pages 53-56.
    2. Carol Corrado & Mary O'Mahony & Lea Samek, 2020. "Measuring education services using lifetime incomes," Economic Statistics Centre of Excellence (ESCoE) Discussion Papers ESCoE DP-2020-02, Economic Statistics Centre of Excellence (ESCoE).
    3. Hulten, Charles R., 2010. "Growth Accounting," Handbook of the Economics of Innovation, in: Bronwyn H. Hall & Nathan Rosenberg (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Innovation, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 987-1031, Elsevier.
    4. Jaeram Lee & Jungjoon Ihm, 2018. "Financial risk exposure of returns to education: Panel evidence from Korea," Asian Economic Journal, East Asian Economic Association, vol. 32(1), pages 83-97, March.
    5. Ren, Yu & Yuan, Yufei & Zhang, Yang, 2014. "Human capital, household capital and asset returns," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 11-22.
    6. Carmichael, Fiona & Ercolani, Marco & Kang, Lili & Maimaiti, Yasheng & O'Mahony, Mary & Peng, Fei & Robinson, Catherine, 2009. "Training, education and productivity," MPRA Paper 39899, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Miguel Palacios, 2010. "Human Capital as an Asset Class: Implications from a General Equilibrium Model," Working Papers 2011-016, Human Capital and Economic Opportunity Working Group.
    8. Emanuela di Gropello, 2006. "Meeting the Challenges of Secondary Education in Latin America and East Asia : Improving Efficiency and Resource Mobilization," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 7173.
    9. Qing Li & Long Hai Vo, 2021. "Intangible Capital and Innovation: An Empirical Analysis of Vietnamese Enterprises," Economics Discussion / Working Papers 21-02, The University of Western Australia, Department of Economics.
    10. Zhang, Xiaobei & Wang, Xiaojun, 2021. "Measures of human capital and the mechanics of economic growth," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 68(C).
    11. Gregorio Caetano & Miguel Palacios & Harry A. Patrinos, 2019. "Measuring Aversion to Debt: An Experiment Among Student Loan Candidates," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 40(1), pages 117-131, March.
    12. M. C. Navarro-Perez & J. M. Serrano-Sanz, 2002. "Evaluating Educational Output: An Estimation Method Based on Cross-Section Data," Education Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 10(1), pages 71-95.
    13. Balestra, Simone & Backes-Gellner, Uschi, 2017. "Heterogeneous returns to education over the wage distribution: Who profits the most?," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 89-105.
    14. Valerio Mendoza, Octasiano Miguel & Borsi, Mihály Tamás & Comim, Flavio, 2022. "Human capital dynamics in China: Evidence from a club convergence approach," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    15. Angel de la Fuente & Antonio Ciccone, 2003. "Human capital in a global and knowledge-based economy," UFAE and IAE Working Papers 562.03, Unitat de Fonaments de l'Anàlisi Econòmica (UAB) and Institut d'Anàlisi Econòmica (CSIC).
    16. Wulong Gu & Ambrose Wong, 2015. "Productivity and economic output of the education sector," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 43(2), pages 165-182, April.
    17. Hanno Lustig & Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh, 2008. "The Returns on Human Capital: Good News on Wall Street is Bad News on Main Street," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 21(5), pages 2097-2137, September.
    18. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/1754 is not listed on IDEAS
    19. Thomas Melonio & Xavier Timbeau, 2006. "Les 140 points de PIB oubliés de la comptabilité nationale française," Documents de Travail de l'OFCE 2006-01, Observatoire Francais des Conjonctures Economiques (OFCE).
    20. Eric A. Hanushek & Jens Ruhose & Ludger Woessmann, 2017. "Knowledge Capital and Aggregate Income Differences: Development Accounting for US States," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 9(4), pages 184-224, October.
    21. Falck, Oliver & Heimisch-Roecker, Alexandra & Wiederhold, Simon, 2021. "Returns to ICT skills," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 50(7).

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:fip:fedmsr:447. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: Kate Hansel (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cfrbmus.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.