Human Capital: A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis with Special Reference to Education, First Edition

Investment in human capital in the form of education has paid a substantial rate of return through higher income to the individuals directly involved, this study finds, and probably has also been a major factor in raising the productivity of the American people.
Part One discusses specific kinds of human capital, such as education and on-the-job training, with emphasis on their effects on earnings, employment, and other economic variables. The analysis produces a new and illuminating general theory with a wide variety of important applications, ranging from the personal distribution of earnings to unemployment differentials.
Part Two investigates empirically the effect of one kind of human capital—formal education—on earnings and productivity in this country. New estimates are given of the private and social rates of return on investment in college and high-school education during the last twenty-five years, including separate estimates for different demographic groups at various ability levels; the trends over time are also discussed.
Appendixes set forth the sources and methods used in deriving the rates of return and other figures presented in the study, and discuss mathematically the relation between age, earnings, and human wealth.