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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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