| Most economists argue that human capital ultimately determine the character and pace of economic and social development. By now most economists would agree with Lucas' claim that the 'main engine of growth is the accumulation of human capital'. Human resources are the active agents who accumulate capital, exploit natural resources, build social, economic and political organizations, and carry forward national development. Impressive statistics and numerous quantitative studies of the sources of economic growth in the west demonstrated that it was not the growth of physical but rather of human capital (the residuals in econometrics production function estimates) that was the principal source of economic progress in developed nations. Clearly, in the developing country there is an immediate need to build up human as well as the physical capital infrastructure, in order to provide indigenous leadership for the major tasks of development. In order to create human capital effectively and make full use of human capital, we need to measure human capital and optimize the allocation of human capital. These two matters are studied in detail in this paper.Chapter 1 offers a brief historical review of the concept and theory development of human capital. First, after reviewing how the concept of human capital come into being, this chapter gives a new definition of human capital. At the same time the concepts of human capital, human resource and knowledge capital are discriminated. Then, human capital theory development is briefly described, and the contribution and the deficiency of the theory are pointed out. After pointing out the deficiency in human capital research in our country, this chapter finally puts forward the problems need more research in this field.Chapter 2 is mainly discusses the formation of human capital. In order to measure and allocate human capital, we should know how human capital is created. Education and on-job-training play critical role in creating human capital. After the formation of human capital is discussed, some characters of human capital are briefly analyzed. The relation between human capital and physical capital is deeply discussed in this chapter. Finally this chapter gives some ideas on how to invest effectively in human capital.Chapter 3 is mainly concerned with the methods of human capital measurement. First, we examine the economic concept of value and then apply it to people to develop the notion of human capital value. Next we formulate a model to identify the factors that influence the value of individuals to organizations. This will aid in measuring human capital value in monetary terms. Then, two methods of human capital estimation are advanced,( i )the retrospective approach, measures the cost of human capital investment, (ii)the prospective approach, measures the present value of the expected future services that human capital can render. The measurement exercise based on the average years of schooling is done in this chapter. Finally, this chapter proposes an income-based approach to compare human capital input for 31 provinces of diverse output levels. We find that per-capitahuman capital input decreases from eastern area to western area in China.Chapter 4 is mainly discusses human capital statistics. First, this chapter presents a new approach to evaluating the aggregate literacy in a country or region. The resulting 'effective literacy' measure takes into account the intrahousehold externality arising from the presence of a literate member. Then, after creating a set of indicators for evaluating human capital, we use factor analysis method to evaluate human capital of each province in China. Next, we discuss on human capital accounting under the sustainable development policy. Finally, we give some simple ideas on how to place human capital into national accounts. At the same time, we also briefly analyze the problems need solving for carrying out human capital national economic accounting.Chapter 5 makes a study of the allocation of human capital. Hum...
|
PDF Full Text Request