KDI Journal of Economic Policy

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P-ISSN 2586-2995
E-ISSN 2586-4130

Vol.37, No.2

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KDI Journal of Economic Policy. Vol. 37, No. 2, May 2015, pp. 22-37

https://doi.org/10.23895/kdijep.2015.37.2.22

× KDI Open Access is a program of fully open access journals to facilitate the widest possible dissemination of high-quality research. All research articles published in KDI JEP are immediately, permanently and freely available online for everyone to read, download and share in terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Why Standard Measures of Human Capital are Misleading

ERIC A.HANUSHEK

Author & Article History

Manuscript received 27 April 2015; revision received 27 April 2015; accepted 20 May 2015.

Abstract

After a long, dormant period, recent attention has turned to a variety of measurement issues surrounding the concept of human capital. The traditional approach of rely entirely on measures of school attainment, while convenient, is almost certainly misleading. The availability of cognitive skills measures greatly improves on these measurements, but there remains also concern about other unmeasured factors, including noncognitive skills. This paper considers alternative approaches to assessing the role of human capital on individual earnings and on economic growth.

Keywords

Human Capital, Returns to Skills, Cognitive Skills, Earnings Function, Longrun Growth

JEL Code

O15, I25, I26

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