Review Article: The New Political Economy of Skill Formation
Public Administration Review, Vol. 67, 2007
14 Pages Posted: 5 Oct 2007 Last revised: 9 Oct 2007
Abstract
This article reviews the emerging literatures on public policies to invest in, and protect, human capital and valuable asset-specific skills. Special attention is given to two recent books on the topic: James Heckman and Alan Krueger's (2003) Inequality in America, and Torben Iversen's (2005) Capitalism, Democracy, and Welfare. The article argues that, cumulatively, the literatures in economics, politics, sociology and political economy show that human capital policies can be institutional sources of competitive economic advantage. Efficiency can be boosted by strategies aiming both to provide affordable, high-quality childcare and cognitive as well as behavioral skills in schooling, and to protect valuable asset-specific skill investments. These are important messages for policymakers, and they open up promising avenues for future research on the cognitive, behavioral, and micro-political sources of long-term success in the knowledge economy.
Keywords: education policies, welfare states, early childhood investment, asset-specific skills, institutional analysis, economic inequality, James Heckman, Torben Iversen
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation
Do you have a job opening that you would like to promote on SSRN?
Recommended Papers
-
The Effects of Cognitive and Noncognitive Abilities on Labor Market Outcomes and Social Behavior
By James J. Heckman, Jora Stixrud, ...
-
The Technology of Skill Formation
By Flavio Cunha and James J. Heckman
-
The Technology of Skill Formation
By Flavio Cunha and James J. Heckman
-
Interpreting the Evidence on Life Cycle Skill Formation
By Flavio Cunha, James J. Heckman, ...
-
Interpreting the Evidence on Life Cycle Skill Formation
By Flavio Cunha, James J. Heckman, ...
-
Estimating the Technology of Cognitive and Noncognitive Skill Formation
By Flavio Cunha, James J. Heckman, ...
-
Estimating the Technology of Cognitive and Noncognitive Skill Formation
By Flavio Cunha, James J. Heckman, ...
-
The Economics and Psychology of Personality Traits
By Lex Borghans, Angela Duckworth, ...
-
The Economics and Psychology of Personality Traits
By Lex Borghans, Angela Duckworth, ...