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Date: | Fri Mar 31 17:18:23 2006 |
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----------------- HES POSTING -----------------
I have some problems in dealing with this query, since I am not sure if
I got it right. One thing is the economic value of the human lives
(something with a long presence on the economic and non-economic
literature). Another issue is the foreseeable value of education and
training. And another one, still, is the shape of the personal income
curve. I will concentrate on the last two issues.
B. Kiker's work is certainly the most extensive one covering the
subject, though it tends to adopt a justification perspective (a so-called
whiggish approach, as it become fashionable to say it in our sub-field).
His
purpose of discovering the roots of human capital theory leads him to look
at the previous reflection as logical antecedents of the modern
developments. This has several problems as I attempted to discuss in the
paper I presented at the last HES meeting (Vancouver).
Two additional and useful references would be M. Blaug - The Economics of
Education in English Classical Political Economy, in Essays on Adam Smith
(A. Skinner and T. Wilson, 1975); and Margaret O'Donnell - The Educational
Thought of the Classical Political Economists, University Press of
America,1985.
As far as the concave curve of the personal income is concerned, this was
mostly accepted in the research on this issue of the early twentieth
century. In particular after the pioneer work of several authors linked
with the NBER. In this context, the setting of the Conference on Research
and Income gave a great stimulus to the research on this topic.
However, I would credit the idea of on-the-job training and its role on the
shape of the personal income curve to Jacob Mincer and his doctoral
dissertation (1957, Columbia; shortened version published the following
year in the JPE).
Pedro Teixeira
University of Porto and University of Exeter
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