Some features of the "accumulation of human capital" in modern Russia. Problems of human capital accumulation How is human capital formed

For the first time, the concept of bourgeois political economy "human capital" and its use in state practice are briefly summarized, the achievement of the absolute limit of the accumulation of human capital and the steady reduction of its total value, which inevitably and inevitably aggravates the conflict between the material development of production and its social form, up to the assumption of the beginning of a transitional period. to the communist social formation.

The factor of "human capital" in modern public policy.

If 30 years ago only in the publications of scientists and public figures, then in recent decades, in the documents of the UN, the IMF, the World Bank and national states, not only the change in the role of human capital in economic development is stated, but the transformation of human capital into the main factor of economic growth having a long-term character. Also in the Russian Federation, this thesis is confirmed in strategic planning documents officially adopted over the past 2-3 years. First of all, we are talking about the strategies for the socio-economic development of the Russian Federation as a whole and its individual subjects. Based on this “initial thesis”, such documents established that “the development of human capital” was recognized as the “first” and “main” among the strategic priorities of the state.

But what is meant by human capital, how is the volume and content of this term that has become normative revealed, and by what means is it planned to achieve this very “development of human capital”? A clear and more or less clear, not to mention complete, definition of the term “human capital” cannot be found in all these documents - as a rule, it does not exist at all. Instead, “development of human capital” is declared as a “strategic direction of socio-economic development” of the state and a list of “directions and projects” included in this “strategic direction of socio-economic development” is given.

Disregarding some minor differences between strategic planning documents adopted by various state authorities of the Russian Federation and its subjects, it can be stated that they are all guided by a certain general list of “directions and projects” for the development of “human capital”. These include the following: demographic development; health development; development of education; cultural development; development of physical culture and sports; growth in the level of employment and provision of social protection of the population. Separate sections are added to these, traditional since Soviet times, "industries of the social sphere", "justified by the needs" of specific (usually significant electorally and economically) social groups (pensioners, beneficiaries, youth, etc.), as well as the housing market .

Practically in all strategic planning documents of the Russian Federation that I managed to get acquainted with, the “development of human capital” is replaced by the tasks of achieving certain target values ​​of several dozen abstract macroeconomic indicators of demography (target dynamics of population, fertility, mortality, etc.), provision of social infrastructure, living space, employment rate, social protection of the population and security. As for the proportions laid down in such documents between all these macrosocial indicators, as well as between them and the macroeconomic indicators established in other sections of such documents, the commensurate proportionality of the values ​​of some indicators to the values ​​of all other indicators and their mutual dependence is only declared as a general theoretical premise of the entire plan.

The target values ​​of demographic and other social macro indicators that characterize the population as a whole, the level of its income from all sources, the provision of social infrastructure and housing, set as “hospital averages”, are just some of the indicators that describe the conditions necessary and sufficient for the reproduction of the human capital. But this is by no means all and by no means all of these indicators, not to mention the conditions themselves. It is not at all in these conditions and "average for the hospital" macro-indicators that the real essence of the matter lies.

The point here is not only and not so much in strategic planning. Modern state statistics not only in the Russian Federation, but also in most countries of the world, in accordance with the recommendations of the UN statistics bodies and other international organizations, provides for the collection of initial data, their methodologically uniform aggregation and / or calculation based on these data of the same macro indicators. However, all this planning, implementation of plans, statistical accounting and monitoring of results have a very indirect relation to the human capital of specific people and their families, cities and districts, regional units and individual nations as a whole. Equally, all this has a very indirect relation also to the reproduction of the human capitals themselves of each of these social groups and the total human capital of a particular nation and humanity as a whole.

Human capital.

Capital as such is, first of all, the social relation of value, reproduced in the conditions of developed commodity production as the dominant relation, subordinating all other relations of social reproduction to itself. If the expression “human capital” is used, then this very expression of essentially logical connections between the meanings of its constituent words means, first of all, self-reproducing social relations and human activity in the production and reproduction of value. This is summarized in the abilities and capabilities of a person to produce and reproduce not only goods, including works and services for which there is effective demand from other people and their (these people) corporations of various types, types and levels.

But these abilities and possibilities are also the abilities and possibilities of a person to reproduce value relations and all those social conditions that determine the necessity of value relations and the process of their reproduction, including the reproduction of the very ability and possibilities of a person to produce and reproduce values, as well as the very activity of a person in production. and reproduction of value. We are talking about the ability and capabilities of people to produce and reproduce, as well as the ability and capabilities of people to consume goods, including works and services that a person needs to reproduce himself, his society and elements of his material wealth (a set of goods, works and services) .

The consumption of goods, works and services can be either productive consumption, in which case it is the production of goods, works and services, or consumer production, in which case it is the production of the people themselves and their society as such. So, only by consuming the produced goods, works and services, carried out through the consumption of opportunities, including abilities, to work (labor force), people only reproduce themselves, their society and their material wealth as such. Any specific consumption, whether it is productive consumption or consumer production, is carried out in very specific institutional conditions through the use of appropriate technology and is characterized not only by a very specific set of tools and objects of labor used, but also by a very specific qualification and organization of this labor required by this particular technology. and institutional conditions for its application.

The totality of knowledge, skills, abilities formed by an individual in the process of mastering certain types of his life activity, including professions, as well as his real ability to practically implement such types of life activity on the basis of existing experience and the corresponding knowledge, skills and abilities, is now called the totality competencies of this individual. In this regard, human capital, which currently characterizes a particular person as an individual, is not only and not so much a set of competencies and other qualitative and quantitative characteristics (age, health, education, culture, physical endurance, mental stability, etc.). ) that characterize the individual at a given time. The specified set of competencies and all other personal characteristics of an individual in the modern terminology of UN documents and other international organizations (human development index, index human development etc. indicators calculated by these organizations) is nothing but the magnitude of the human potential of a given individual.

In order for the human potential of an individual to turn into capital, to become and be human capital, this individual must necessarily enter into quite definite, namely capitalistic, economic relations with other people regarding the production and reproduction of values ​​as commodities and continuously stay in these economic relations. That is, in order for human potential to turn into capital, to become and be human capital, the latter must phenomenologically (on the surface of social life in its dominant ideological given to individuals) also reproduce itself not as a person in the sense of an individual, personality, but as capital and in the value of capital. Therefore, a person (individual), ideologically becoming capital, must receive a phenomenological dimension and expression precisely as capital, as capital, that is, not only as a value, but also, ultimately, as a certain monetary value, the most developed form of which this is precisely the money form of value.

The value of the human capital of an individual, considered from this ideologically bourgeois point of view, is the total value of the value of all practically applied, implemented in practice through this practice of his (the individual) capabilities and abilities to produce and reproduce himself (the value of human capital) and all other specific values (goods) measured by a certain value. This certain value of the value of human capital, estimated (measured) by the participants in bourgeois economic relations between people and recognized through these economic relations, in other words, is called the capitalization of a given individual at a given moment in time. At each moment, the total capitalization of human capital is characterized by its inherent structure of the types of activities in which it (this human capital) is actually used, and the quantitative contribution of each of these types of its activities to the total capitalization (profit or loss) of the individual.

In the conditions of a developed bourgeois society, the implementation of any type of activity requires technologically and institutionally determined costs (expenses) of human capital in the appropriate structure and quantity. On the other hand, for regular renewal, that is, for systematic repetition, of this activity through the use of this human capital, costs (expenses) are necessary for the simple reproduction of this human capital itself (its preservation in unchanged size and qualitative state). From the bourgeois point of view, such expenses are nothing but the depreciation of human capital, which is organically included in the totality of expenses required by a specific type of activity within the framework and for the simple reproduction of this activity.

The depreciation of any capital implies the material form of the phenomenological being (here, being) of this capital, the varieties of which on the surface of social life are not only all tools and objects of labor, but also individuals engaged in the process of reproduction of this capital, that is, using this capital in the process of its reproduction. This already implies that by no means these subjects themselves (individuals as subjects of labor), tools and objects of labor, but something else are capital as such. Themselves, these subjects, tools and objects of labor, being the means of reproduction of capital, are just real (material) carriers or substrates of capital, to use the Latin term of Western philosophy. Real carriers of capital are subject to physical and moral wear and tear, therefore they are subject to timely replacement with other real carriers that functionally replace those carriers of capital that are worn out, that is, they are subject to ordinary and accelerated depreciation, respectively, of their (these used real carriers of capital) physical and moral depreciation.

Let us note for ourselves the following significant point: the ideological understanding of the possibilities and ability of individuals to work as human capital, which is necessarily and inevitably subject to depreciation, has brought to its full logical and historical completion the process of the final identification of a person with a carrier of capital, understood only as a material (commodity) means of reproduction. the capital of itself. Through this ideological identification, not only commodity fetishism received its final historical and logical conclusion, but also the attitude towards a person only and exclusively only as one of the many material foundations or carriers of capital, which appears as the highest, dominating over all others, forms of institutional power. over the process of social reproduction.

By the end of the classical era of the development of capitalist production in the developed bourgeois states, practically every commodity involved in economic circulation within such states and in relations between them, with some exceptions in terms of labor power, had become a product of capital, that is, a product of developed commodity production. Compulsory general and vocational education, mass medical care of the population (mandatory vaccinations of the entire population, starting from childhood, the development of public hygiene and health care, supported by veterinary, sanitary, municipal and medical services, first of all), the development of other institutional and ideological moments of Western civilization turned into the product of capital also of the human individuals themselves.

All this, in fact, created the material basis for the ideological qualification of individuals (human) as human capital - the individual from the product of a family business corporation of consanguinity turned into an integral product of many corporations of all types, types and levels, whose activities are organized as capitalist commodity production , being subject to the reproduction of capital. At the same time, this same process also created a material basis for the ideological expression of each individual human capital as a certain specific ensemble of various varieties of this capital, namely professional (processing or production), cultural, symbolic, political and similar varieties of human capital.

At the same time, an individual is not exactly the same carrier of capital as all other carriers of capital in its commodity form (tool, object or product of labor). In contrast to all other commodity forms of capital, as well as in contrast to capital in the form of money, the individual is also the subject of labor that reproduces capital, and the subject of this capital itself. But this is such a subject of capital, which, acting as a special form of capital, simultaneously serves capital and represents, including personifies and personifies, capital, that is, is nothing more than an agent of capital. Moreover, the individual represents and personifies capital (not only the commodity form of capital, but also capital as such) the more effectively, the more he (this individual) is an agent of capital. And, on the other hand, the less and less effectively a given individual performs the function of an agent of capital, the more this individual is not only superfluous, but also harmful to capital, dangerous to capital. That is, in other words, such an individual is subject to existential destruction as a carrier, representative, personification and personifier of capital, to the extent that this individual manifests himself as a real agent of capital to a lesser extent.

This is what determines the consistent expansion of the reproduction of more and more efficient agents of capital with the simultaneous narrowing (up to a complete cessation) of the reproduction of the least efficient agents of capital and the expansion of existential destruction (up to physical destruction) of individuals that harm the reproduction of capital. This logically and historically completes the process of the final transformation of capital into an absolute despotic power over a person (both the individual and society), his activity, consciousness and will, which opposes a person as an absolute force alien to him. And, consequently, this same process of alienation and self-alienation of a person from his generic essence is brought to its logical and historical limit - to self-destruction by a person of himself not only as social individuals, but also as all other social "populations", except for the "population" of the most efficient agents of capital. The last is a metaphorically very accurate name - "golden billion", but "billion" is only at a certain initial stage of this cannibalistic logic, and for subsequent stages, if any, we will naturally talk about an ever smaller number of individuals included in the "golden" the number of agents of capital.

If the scale of some activity carried out as part of the reproduction of capital on an unchanged technical basis expands, then this expansion is carried out due to investments (additional investments) of capital not only in the corresponding additional tools and objects of labor, but also in additional human capital. In other words, in this case we are also talking about the expanded reproduction of human capital, carried out in the process and through the expanded reproduction of the corresponding types of activities. However, if the technical basis for the reproduction of capital changes and at the same time the scale of application and, consequently, the amount of applied human capital is reduced, then the consequence of this, under other unchanged conditions, is the release of a certain amount (loss) of processing (applied) human capital, which manifests itself as the release of workers. With regard to the entire professional and, more broadly, the entire social group to which the laid-off workers belong, we can already talk only about the narrowing reproduction of this social group as human capital.

The part of human capital that was used before, but is no longer used, is not real, but only eventual capital (capital in the possibility determined by the onset and presence of certain, quite specific, conditions), remaining such only for a certain time, but decreasing in terms of its value during all this particular time. In terms of specific individuals, this manifests itself not only as a disqualification (loss of competencies) of these individuals, but also as a degradation of the personality of these individuals. The decline (reduction) in the total value of human capital, which is represented by a given individual or professional (social) group, when this decline is the result of their life over a continuous series of years, is degradation, but by no means the development of the corresponding individuals or social groups as carriers and representatives of capital .

At the same time, in the bourgeois economy, the implementation of any type of activity has as its goal the receipt of appropriate income. These latter are characterized not only quantitatively, that is, in monetary (value) terms, but also qualitatively - as a list of produced and sold goods, including not only works and services, but also the very ability to work (labor force). Both the costs of doing business and the income from this activity have different sources that are in certain proportional relationships with each other, determined by the technical basis of the corresponding production (type of activity) and the organic structure of the capital used in this production. All these proportions of income and expenses can and should be expressed as a balance of the corresponding items of income and expenses (costs) in the total balance of the reproduction of some specific processing capital. This is fully applicable also to the balance of the reproduction of human capital, if we are talking about the reproduction of this particular type of capital.

Only on this theoretical basis, considered so far only in its most significant points, the meaning and difference between the expressions become clear: investment (investment) in human capital, on the one hand, and investment (investment) of human capital in specific businesses or organizations (corporations) , on the other hand. But if for the reproduction of financial or industrial capital the basic (primary) level is the world market (the whole of humanity as a global economy), then for the reproduction of human capital, the primary (basic) level is still by no means an individual or even a world or national economy, but family as an economic corporation of consanguinity (household). It is the family as a corporation of consanguinity, in reality often consisting not of one household, but of several or many such households, that acts as a real personifier (owner) of capital, endowing individuals not only with the opportunities to form their abilities to work, but also opportunities use, possession and disposal of various types of capital.

If in the entire previous definition of human capital, a family (household) or a municipality, region (region or republic as a state entity), a national state is replaced by an individual, then we will get, if we take into account all the necessary and inevitable changes and complications, the definition of human capital according to a particular family, municipality, region or nation state. Only from the considered point of view, the volume and content of the concepts of human capital and development (expanded reproduction) of human capital become logically quite definite and clear.

Limits of human capital accumulation.

What is really of interest to any particular inhabitant of the territory of a given region or nation-state? He is interested, first of all, in the certainty of what the purchasing power of his family's income will be in a year, two, five, ten years. And it will not be abstract, but concrete with a high degree probability, based on the actual structure acceptable to his family, the quantity and quality of consumption of goods, works and services that guarantee his family an improvement in its real opportunities, position and status in this year, two, five, ten years. And on what basis can he reasonably draw such a conclusion? Based on the confidence that his family's consumption, which improves in quality and quantity, and, consequently, his family's expenses, which grow in accordance with this, will be covered by the income she receives in a year, and in two, and in five, ten years.

The main factors of such confidence of people in their entire national mass are their national state and the social well-being of the bulk of the population of this state. We are talking about the confidence of this mass of people that the state, firstly, will fully fulfill its part of the obligations to create and develop conditions that will ensure the supply of jobs that their families need in terms of wages and corresponding to the ability of families to change set of competencies of its members. Secondly, we are talking about the confidence of this mass of people that the state will fully fulfill its part of the obligations to create and develop conditions that will provide the structure required in terms of quality, quantity and price, goods, works and services in all areas of reproduction. human capital of the respective families.

This is the amount of real wages, and the amount of income from family property, and the amount of all types of pensions and social payments, and the amount of income from all other sources of gratuitous social support and possible borrowings, if any, are required to balance the family income with its necessary expenses. The necessary expenses of the family include not only all utility bills determined by the tariffs and prices for the relevant services, but also taxes and fees, interest on loans and the repayment of the loans themselves, and all other payments that are mandatory by law. In addition to them, the necessary expenses include the family's expenses for food and clothing, home furnishings and provision of life, education and health care, satisfaction of cultural and other needs of leisure, recreation and development, payment for transport services, including personal transport, covering the costs of maintaining and improvement of living conditions, creation of insurance and reserve savings. And all this is by no means “average for the hospital”, but real values ​​that characterize the level and quality of life of that particular group (set) of families to which the family of a particular resident of a region or state belongs. Based on these real values, each family plans in one way or another and, in fact, regularly balances (or does not) the elementary daily, monthly and other balances of their income and expenses.

Another of the main factors and at the same time a guarantor of such confidence of the population is social practice, if it convinces that by their direct actions (protests, lawsuits, elections, etc.) or through political parties, trade unions and other public corporations, the population can force authorities and employers to fulfill their obligations to the population. This is, firstly, and, secondly, if the same social practice convinces the population that, despite objectively and subjectively caused failures in some difficult years, in the medium and long term (5-10-15 years and more) the state seeks to consistently improve the conditions that ensure the actual increase in the level and quality of life of the entire population.

But none of the above can be seen even in a ghostly distance even in the documents of strategic planning of economically developed national states and their regions, not to mention the real policy of the ruling class pursued by state authorities and business corporations of transnational, national and subnational significance in all other states. Why? Apparently, because in terms of the accumulation of human capital, strategic planning documents are by no means the dominant instruments of the actual management activities carried out by the authorities and governments of states and corporations in reality, but also the institutional means that ensure the accumulation of total human capital in the corresponding national state.

The content of state strategic planning documents is “perpendicular” not only to the accumulation of human capital by the entire population of the respective states and their territories, but also to the real management of the economy of national states and corporations operating in this territory. The vast majority of such state documents of strategic planning are a "bureaucratic brake" in the economic practice of state authorities and at the same time a "club" in the interdepartmental and intersectoral struggle of the clans of the ruling class and corporations, the use (implementation) of which exponentially increases " White noise» in public authorities and transaction costs of state regulation of the economy.

The results that will be achieved in the case of the use of funds planned by the current strategic planning documents at the national and subnational levels, not only in the current Russian Federation, but also in the developed countries of the world, will most likely cause a further decline in the total human capital of the vast majority of the population and its further social and economic degradation than keeping the existing one. And no "manual control", including by the most brilliant leaders of the state, even theoretically can fix this.

The economic use of territories with a population of millions and tens of millions of people, and their development in modern conditions, it is impossible to effectively manage in a "manual mode" even in the short term (one or three years), not to mention the medium and long term. These are only social catastrophes of all kinds, as a rule, "man-made", that is, they are the inevitable result of "manual control" by persons holding leadership positions at all levels of managerial "verticals" and "horizontals". But sustainable development is possible only as a result of the systematic efforts of the majority, if not all participants, of this process, purposefully coordinating and balancing their interests, available resources and daily activities in terms of tasks, territories and terms.

And here, namely, the distribution of the conditions of social reproduction and its results, the group and, ultimately, the class interests of social groups of people in all territories of a given national state, the limits of accumulation of the total human capital not only of the bulk of its population, but of the entire the nation as a whole. For a long period up to the end of the 70-80s of the last century, the most developed nations removed such limits on the accumulation of their human capital, setting higher limits instead, not so much due to internal sources of economic and social development, but due to the exploitation of everything else. humanity.

The “developing” nations removed (raised) the limits of the accumulation of national human capital to a greater extent, the more effectively they carried out “catching up development” not so much at the expense of internal sources, but at the expense of the “assistance” of developed nations and participation in the exploitation of other peoples. Ultimately, this inevitably led and led to the transformation of "developing nations" into actual neo-colonies of developed nations and the loss by developing nations of the very opportunity to catch up and overtake developed nations. Even contemporary China seems to be losing more and more real chances to become an exception to this general rule.

The global systemic crisis of the economic social formation, which entered its final stage at the end of the 1970s and 1980s, revealed not only to all of humanity as a whole, but every year it also shows to an increasing extent also to the bulk of the population of developed nations the absolute limit to further accumulation human capital both globally and nationally. Not only that, in recent decades, even within developed nations, there has been an increasing awareness of the fact that this absolute limit to the accumulation of their human capital has already remained in the past, and that the value of their human capital already has a steady downward trend in the medium and long term.

The historically emerging and further aggravated objective social conditions and factors of the ever-increasing loss of human capital by the ever-increasing masses of the population of developed and developing nations necessarily and inevitably reveal and exacerbate the conflict between the material development of production and its social form (see: Conditions and Limits for Expanding the Reproduction of Financial capital, part 10: The urgency of the inevitable change in the social form of production). And this will necessarily and inevitably entail the escalation of the economic demands and economic struggles of the broad masses of the developed and developing nations into their political demands and actions, which in the end cannot but lead to ideological, political, economic and social changes that mark the beginning of the transition period. to a different social form of reproduction of man as a man.

The problem of accumulating scientific knowledge, experience and skills of workers and their valuation as a real component of national wealth has not received proper development until recently, despite the fact that the formulation of this problem was one of the initial ideas of classical political economy. This group problems are often combined with a certain degree of conventionality by a common name - the problem human capital. The study of the reproduction of human capital in the modern economy involves the study of the problems of the social movement of scientific and technical information, embodied in the labor force of highly qualified workers.

At the dawn of the development of machine production, when the production process needed a partial worker who played the role of an appendage of the machine, the application of scientific knowledge in production was completely separated from the knowledge and skills of individual workers. Moreover, the appearance of machines in production processes not only did not contribute to the improvement of the skills of the vast majority of their direct participants, but also required the mass replacement of skilled, skilled manual workers by low-skilled workers capable of performing only a limited number of partial operations. Thus, in terms of his functional role in the production process, the part-time worker himself was reduced only to the position of a machine that that's why so easily and successfully competed with him, forcing him out of production.

This reduction of the production functions of man to the functions of a machine is the fundamental ontological the reason for the fact that the theoretical doctrines that characterize the economic structure of the society of industrial technologies proceed from the a priori economic equivalence of living and materialized past labor, without questioning the legitimacy of their comparison. However, the advent of the era of information technology dominance should encourage researchers to radically reconsider this point of view, which for a long time seemed natural and the only possible one.

Modern high-tech production processes, on the contrary, assume that the workers participating in them perform elements of complex creative, intellectual labor, namely, they carry out the function of monitoring the operation of machines and managing them, which means that modern production no longer requires part-time workers, but workers -generalists, the production functions of which can only be performed by comprehensively developed individuals. Therefore, the inevitable consequence of the development of the information technology system will be the elimination of modern inert forms of the division of labor that chain a person to his profession, and with it the destruction of the system of private property relations that prevails today.

At the same time, this process is quite lengthy and contradictory, since the development of knowledge-intensive production processes, generally speaking, does not relieve the working individual from performing partial operations. As an example, we can cite the functions of an operator who controls and directs the work of highly complex high-tech production systems (for example, a computer operator): this work assumes the presence partial worker, and not at all a comprehensively developed individual, since it is based on the implementation of not creative, but logical operations.

Due to the global changes taking place before our eyes in the nature, content and conditions of social labor, the role of information embodied in the labor force of highly qualified workers is significantly increasing today. Modern production processes taking place in the most developed countries of the world place high demands on the level literacy of the people participating in them, that is, to the ability of these people to extract from the surrounding world, process and fix in sign form the information they need.

The identification of a person's literacy with his ability to read and write is an ahistorical approach. There was a time in human history when these two skills were actually enough to be a literate person. Today, however, the range of skills required for full participation in socially normal production processes is rapidly growing and becoming more complex. The presence of a certain level of education and intellectual development of an individual is a necessary prerequisite for his entry into production processes, the technical and economic conditions of which correspond to a socially normal level. According to K. Jaspers, a person himself becomes one of the types of raw materials subject to purposeful processing. This means that today a fundamental methodological development of the problems of the reproduction of the labor force is needed, taking into account the reproduction of the information embodied in it.

The accumulation of human capital (information embodied in the labor force of highly qualified workers), as well as the accumulation of any scientific and technical information, is a cumulative process, the quantitative side of which is described by logistic curves. They also naturally arise in the process of studying the various phenomena that take place in the sphere of work and employment, in particular, concerning the level of unemployment, income and consumption.

Statistical data on the dependence of the unemployment rate in various social groups on the level of their education and qualifications, cited in a number of recent publications, make it possible to build the one shown in Fig. 5.8 dependence of the probability of job loss during the economic crisis by one or another employee (parameter R) from the total investment in his human capital made during his entire previous life (parameter G): it is a parabola-like curve whose branches are directed downwards, with a single maximum point.

In fact, the probability of losing a job during a crisis as a function of investment in human capital obeys the law normal distribution. Roughly speaking, the probability of losing a job both for a worker with a primary education and for an academician is quite small - it is maximum for people with incomplete higher education or just received higher education (young specialists). This is one of the reasons for the sharp "rejuvenation" of unemployment in countries experiencing an economic crisis.

It's easy to understand that increment the specified normally distributed probability, expressed as an integral with a variable upper limit, as a function of the amount of investment in human capital, can be well approximated by a logistic curve:

Rice. 5.8.Dependence of the probability of losing a job on the total investment in human capital

Regarding the theoretical justification of the logistic nature of this dependence, it is easy to see that the law diminishing productivity capital (diminishing returns on investment) applies equally to investment in human capital. In particular, the statistics of the developed countries of the world show that the costs of obtaining a secondary education bring a more tangible economic effect and pay off faster than those for obtaining a higher education, and they, in turn, are more effective than the costs of retraining and advanced training carried out by at the place of work. So, according to some estimates, the rate of return on investment in secondary education in developed countries averages 11%, in less developed countries it lies in the range of 15-18%. The rate of return on investment in higher education is 9% for developed countries, and 13-16% for less developed countries. At the same time, a regularity can be traced in all groups of countries: the higher the level of education, the lower its return. So, for primary education, it can reach 50-100%, for secondary education - 15-20%.

The declining productivity of human capital immediately entails significant consequences for the formation and implementation of a competent state policy in the field of education and science. In particular, the fact that the productivity of human capital is declining means that the achievement of universal literacy brings a more tangible economic effect to society than the training of super-intellectuals in the presence of an illiterate majority of the population. In essence, the policy of the cultural revolution, put forward and implemented in our country in the first decades of Soviet power, was aimed at using this pattern. A nation in which everyone can read and write will, in the long run, overtake in technological development a nation in which the majority of the population is illiterate, although some individuals are brilliant.

It should be noted that such a statement of the problem fundamentally contradicts the state educational policy of most countries of the world (especially developed countries), in particular, the doctrine of education adopted in our country and which puts forward as the leading goal of the functioning of the education system not the training of specialists for the national economy, as it was before, but the satisfaction of the intellectual needs of an isolated individual. However, it would be unreasonable to assume that the needs of individuals for knowledge exist in the abstract and independently of the needs of social production for qualified personnel. In any case, the sphere of social production (material and spiritual) remains the end consumer of specialists with higher education. Therefore, the nature and level of training of specialists in universities are ultimately determined by the needs of modern production.

The application of logistic curves to describe the dependencies to which the accumulation of human capital is subject is based on the fact that a certain part of the labor force of working individuals, which is the totality of their knowledge, skills and abilities, characterizing their professional, general educational and cultural level, is a cumulative value, accumulating , in other words, is part of main capital, as opposed to working capital, which has the character of not a "fund" (stock), and "flow" (flow). This idea, which underlies many modern theoretical constructions (in particular, theories of human capital), is one of the leading ideas of classical political economy. In particular, A. Smith considered the creative capabilities of a person as an integral part of the total fixed capital of society: “The acquisition of such abilities, also considering the maintenance of their owner during his upbringing, training or apprenticeship, always requires additional costs, which are fixed capital, like would be realized in his personality ... ".

Somewhat later, a similar idea was expressed by K. Marx, who noted that the totality of qualities that characterize a person's ability to work forms the stock of his potential labor. Marx uses the term Arbeitskraft, not quite correctly translated as "labour force". Information embodied in a highly skilled labor force and acting as a preserved result of previous labor (knowledge, qualifications of a working individual, as well as his general educational and cultural level achieved by him at the expense of his free time), represent a fixed capital that is not spent every time without a trace. in the process of labor carried out by a given working individual, but transfers its value in parts to a newly created product, up to complete obsolescence.

Thus, funds advanced for the purchase of living labor cannot be wholly attributed to circulating capital: by the nature of reproduction, part of the variable capital is fixed capital, and the share of this fixed capital in the total value of labor power increases more and more as the process of social reproduction makes ever higher demands on the qualifications of working individuals, on the level of their education. That is why the training of workers, the improvement of their qualifications (as well as the saving of working time, which is a necessary prerequisite for this process) can be legitimately considered as the production of the total fixed capital of society.

Increasing attention to the problems of the reproduction of human capital indicates that the time has come to overcome the still widespread view of investment in education and research as spending on philanthropic motives, contrary to considerations of economic efficiency. The problem of measuring the micro- and macroeconomic efficiency of investments in human capital is becoming an independent problem that deserves the close attention of economists.

The key point in the study of country and regional labor markets should be the fact of stratification of these markets into three specified segments, each of which is characterized by certain patterns and logic of market equilibrium (disequilibrium). The next step is to recognize the fact that these three labor markets correspond to three different kinds of production possibilities curve.

Denote by c(t) the current consumption of the working individual at a point in time t, and through i(t) its current investment in the reproduction of human capital. Let now on the time interval quantities are considered

The values ​​/ and C are the average values, respectively, of the functions i(t) And c(t) on the interval or, in the language of statistics, the mathematical expectations of the corresponding continuously distributed random variables. To obtain adequate results, it is necessary that the interval was quite long, comparable, if not with the duration of the entire working career of the individual, then at least with the duration of the industrial cycle (at least 5-6 years).

Production possibility curves characterizing the consumer's choice between investment in human capital and current consumption, plotted in coordinates (C, G), differ significantly depending on volume distributed resources.

The minimum price of living labor, which predetermines the entry of a working individual into a discriminatory labor market, corresponds to the curve shown in Fig. 5.9. Optimal consumer choice marked with a dot BUT in fig. 5.10 implies a minimum investment in human capital, which corresponds to the level of education required to participate in technologically primitive production processes.

The famous investor, whose meteoric career began by selling the ABC for four soldos, maximized his utility function by moving along the production possibilities curve towards the point BUT, indicated by the arrow in Fig. 5.9.

With an increase in the price of living labor and, consequently, the total amount of resources distributed by the individual, the individual moves to the socially normal labor market, and the curve of his production possibilities changes as shown in Fig. 5.10. In addition to the global optimum BUT, which corresponds to the indifference curve 1, there is a local maximum of the utility function IN, corresponding to the amount of investment in human capital, allowing the individual to work in the knowledge-intensive sector of the economy.

Rice. 5.9. Consumer Investment Choice: Discriminatory

Rice. 5.10.Consumer investment choice: socially normal labor market

Let us pay attention to the fact that the production possibilities curve (monotonically decreasing as usual) in this case is not convex: the section between the points BUT And IN in fig. 5.10 corresponds to the level of education of the “drop-out”, whose investment in human capital has already deprived him of the opportunity to increase current consumption, but still does not allow him to expect an optimal return.

A further increase in the price of living labor leads the individual to the so-called elite labor market, in which the reproduction of human capital plays a decisive role. The production possibilities curve corresponding to this segment of the labor market is shown in Fig. 5.11. The optimal strategy of an individual in this labor market is the growth of investment in human capital, which is significantly ahead of the growth in current consumption (point BUT in fig. 5.11). Although the local maximum of the utility function corresponding to low-skilled labor still takes place (it is better to have no education at all than not to complete it), it is still significantly inferior to the global maximum and points in its immediate vicinity. This fact is illustrated in Fig. 5.11 by the fact that indifference curve 1 lies above indifference curve 2, passing through a local optimum IN.

Fundamentally important point is that the three different types of production possibilities curve depicted in Fig. 5.9-5.11 correspond to different volumes total income, that is, the total resources distributed by the working individual between his current consumption and investment in human capital. The mutual arrangement of these curves is shown in Figs. 5.12: curve no. 1 corresponds to a discriminatory labor market, curve no. 2 to a socially normal one, curve no. 3 to an elitist one.

Rice. 5.11.Consumer Investment Choice: Elite Labor Market

Rice. 5.12.

The minimum required amount of resources is only enough for the purpose of current consumption (curve No. 1), and if this amount is exceeded, investment in human capital, even at best, grows insignificantly (curve No. 2). At the same time, when the main problems of current consumption are resolved, a further increase in the resources distributed by the individual entails a sharp increase in investment in human capital, while the growth in current consumption is already small (D / in Fig. 5.12 significantly exceeds AC). This, in fact, is the logic of the law. elevation needs: at a certain stage, the leading role is no longer the quantitative growth in the volume of resources consumed by the individual, but the development and realization of his creative vitality and abilities. The so-called Engel's law also states that the volume of consumption of essential goods is not very elastic with respect to income, in contrast to the volume of consumption of goods and services that ensure the accumulation of human capital.

Note that the innovation breakthrough strategy is available only to those countries in which a significant proportion of the population is an elite labor market with a utility function given by curve No. 3. If this proportion is low, then the majority of the population bringing labor to the socially normal labor market, guided considerations of maximizing the utility function, will choose the strategy of "underinvestment" corresponding to the point BUT in fig. 5.10. Thus, the level of reproduction of the total human capital necessary for the independent implementation of the global technological shift will be inaccessible to this country, and it will automatically fall into technological dependence on other more developed countries.

This is one of the main reasons for the fact that the richest countries in the world concentrate high-tech production processes on their territory, seeking to move technologically backward and environmentally harmful industries to the territory of developing countries, including Russia. At the same time, the cult of consumption is actively imposed on the relevant countries, moving the choice of the consumer to the right and down along each of the considered production possibility curves: following this cult entails an increase in the current consumption of individuals and, accordingly, a reduction in investment in human capital. This strategy is aimed at effectively eliminating competitors in the world market in the development and implementation of information products, which are some new industrial countries (both the first and second waves) and Russia for the developed countries of the world.

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND SCIENCE KHARKOV NATIONAL UNIVERSITY named after V.N.KARAZIN

Faculty of Economics

Department of Economic Theory

and economic management methods

Course work:

Human Capital: Economic Content and Factors of Accumulation

Executor:

I-year student

group EE-11

Goncharova Ya.A.

Scientific performer:

e. n. Kim M.N.

Kharkiv - 2010

Introduction

Chapter I. The essence of human capital

1.1Modern approach to the study of human capital

1.2Methods for assessing human capital

1.3Assessing human capital based on targeted investment

1.4Assessing human capital by analogy with physical capital

1.5 Measuring human capital: challenges and opportunities

Chapter II. Factors of accumulation of human capital

2.1The role of education and science in the accumulation of human capital

2.2 Development of health and culture as a factor in capital accumulation

2.3 Importance of human capital accumulation

Conclusion

List of used literature

Introduction

Prospects for the world economy in the XXI century.

are determined by the nature of the transition of countries to a new stage in the development of productive forces: from the industrial stage, where large-scale mechanized machine production dominated, to the post-industrial one, where the service sector, science, education, etc. will prevail.

The production of material goods will certainly retain its importance, but its economic efficiency will be determined primarily by the use of highly qualified personnel, new knowledge, technologies and management methods.

Thus, the method of production and transfer of knowledge comes to the fore, in fact, the person himself - his intellectual potential.

Therefore, an increasing number of researchers consider human capital to be the most valuable resource of a post-industrial society, much more important than natural or accumulated wealth.

Already now, in all countries, human (intellectual) capital predetermines the pace of economic development and scientific and technological progress.

Accordingly, the interest of society in the education system as the basis for the production of this capital is also increasing.

Despite the unconditional demand for the theory of human capital, it is developed mainly by American and British scientists. Much attention is paid to investing in human capital and the factors of its accumulation, since this directly affects the development and improvement of human capital.

In Ukraine, the development of human capital is necessary, but unfortunately at this stage it is weak, because it does not have a sufficiently developed scientific, technical and information base.

To do this, it is necessary to study as deeply as possible all the nuances and requirements of the effective development of human capital and determine the significance of its accumulation.

1.1 Modern approach to the study of human capital

The theory of human capital studies the process of qualitative improvement of human resources, forming one of the central sections of the modern analysis of the supply of labor. With its nomination, a real revolution in the labor economy is associated. The most important were:

1) highlighting the “capital”, investment aspects in the behavior of agents in the labor market;

2) the transition from current indicators to indicators covering the entire life cycle of workers (such as lifetime earnings);

3) recognition of human time as a key economic resource.

The idea of ​​human capital has long roots in the history of economic thought. One of its first formulations is found in W. Petty's Political Arithmetic. Later it was reflected in the “Wealth of Nations” by A. Smith, "Principles" by A.

Marshall, and the works of many other scientists. However, as an independent section of economic analysis, the theory of human capital took shape only at the turn of the 1950s and 1960s.

The credit for its nomination belongs to the famous American economist, Nobel Prize winner T. Schultz, and the basic theoretical model was developed in the book by G. Becker (also Nobel Prize winner) “Human Capital” (first edition 1964).

This book became the basis for all subsequent research in this area and was recognized as a classic of modern economic science.

T. Schultz made a huge contribution to the formation of the theory of human capital at the initial stage of its development, to its acceptance by the scientific community and popularization. He was one of the first to introduce the concept of human capital as a productive factor. And he did a lot to understand the role of human capital as the main engine and foundation of industrial and post-industrial economies.

Schultz considered the accumulation of people's ability to work, their effective creative activity in society, maintenance of health, etc. to be the main results of investments in a person.

He believed that human capital has the necessary features of a productive nature. Cheka is capable of accumulating and reproducing.

According to Schultz, of the total product produced in society for the accumulation of human capital, not 1/4 is used, as followed from most of the theories of reproduction of the 20th century, but 3/4 of its total value.

G. Becker, perhaps, was the first to transfer the concept of human capital to the micro level. He defined the human capital of an enterprise as a set of skills, knowledge and skills of a person. As an investment in them, Becker took into account mainly the costs of education and training. Becker estimated the economic efficiency of education, first of all, for the worker himself.

He defined additional income from higher education as follows. From the income of those who graduated from college, he subtracted the income of workers with a secondary general education. The costs of education were considered both direct costs and opportunity costs - lost income during training. Return on investment in education D.

Becker estimated as the ratio of income to costs, having received approximately 12-14% of the annual profit.

Becker made a special contribution to the theory of competition, strategy and development of the firm. He introduced the distinction between special and general investment in man. And he emphasized the special significance of special education, special knowledge and skills.

Special training of employees forms the competitive advantages of the company, the characteristic and significant features of its products and behavior in the markets, and ultimately its know-how, image and brand. Firms and corporations themselves are primarily interested in special training, and they finance it.

These works of Becker became the basis for the creation of the modern theory of the firm and competition. General training is indirectly paid for by the workers themselves, when, in an effort to improve their skills, they agree to lower wages during the training period; they also get the income from general investments.

On the contrary, special training is financed for the most part by the firms themselves, which also receive the main income from it.

The concept of dedicated human capital has helped to explain why long-term workers in the same job have lower turnover rates and why firms fill vacancies primarily through internal promotions rather than external recruitment.

Another area where the contribution of G. Becker in the theory of human capital turned out to be especially significant - this is an analysis of the problems of economic inequality. Using the apparatus he developed for demand and supply curves for investment in human capital, G.

Beckers formulated a universal model for the distribution of personal income.

The uneven placement of demand curves for investment in human capital reflects inequality in the natural abilities of students, while the uneven placement of supply curves reflects inequality in their families' access to financial resources.

The model proposed by G. Becker explains the inequality of income not only from labor (in fact, from human capital), but also from property (from other assets received as a gift or by inheritance). The return on investment in a person is on average higher than on investment in physical capital.

However, in the case of human capital, it decreases with an increase in the volume of investments, while in the case of other assets (real estate, securities, etc.) it decreases little or does not change at all.

Therefore, the strategy of rational families is: first invest in the human capital of children, since the return on it is relatively greater, and then, as it decreases as it compares with the rate of return of other assets, switch to investing in them in order to subsequently transfer these assets to children.

From this, Becker concluded that families that leave inheritances make optimal investments in the human capital of children, while families that do not leave inheritances most often underinvest in their education.

The development of the theory of human capital went in line with the neoclassical direction. In recent decades, the principle of optimizing behavior of individuals, which was original for neoclassicists, began to spread to various spheres of non-market human activity.

The concepts and methods of economic analysis began to be applied to the study of such social phenomena and institutions as education, health care, migration, marriage and the family, crime, racial discrimination, etc.

The theory of human capital can be seen as one of the manifestations of this general trend called "economic imperialism".

Human capital is understood as the stock of abilities, knowledge, skills and motivations embodied in a person.

Its formation, like the accumulation of physical or financial capital, requires the diversion of funds from current consumption in order to obtain additional income in the future.

The most important types of human investment include education, training at work, migration, information retrieval, the birth and upbringing of children.

The central place in the theory of human capital belongs to the concept of internal rates of return. They are built by analogy with the rates of return on capital and allow us to evaluate the effectiveness of human investment, primarily in education and training.

Theorists of human capital proceed from the notion that when investing in training and education, students and their parents behave rationally, weighing the corresponding benefits and costs.

Like "ordinary" entrepreneurs, they compare the expected marginal rate of return on such investments with the return on alternative investments (interest on bank deposits, dividends on securities, etc.).

Depending on what is more economically feasible, a decision is made either to continue studying or to stop it. Rates of return act, therefore, as a regulator of the distribution of investment between different types and levels of education, as well as between the educational system as a whole and the rest of the economy.

High rates of return indicate underinvestment, low rates indicate overinvestment. There are private and social norms of return. The former measure the effectiveness of investments from the point of view of individual investors, the latter from the point of view of the whole society.

There are two main approaches to calculating rates of return. The first is based on direct measurement of benefits and costs. For example, income from higher education can be represented as the difference in lifetime earnings of those who graduated from college and those who did not go beyond high school.

Costs include, in addition to direct costs, lost earnings, that is, income not received by students during their years of study. (Essentially, they measure the value of student time spent on building human capital.) Lost earnings account for up to two-thirds of the total costs of education.

The internal rate of return will be the discount rate at which the given benefits and costs of education are equal.

The second approach is based on estimating the parameters of the so-called “production function of earnings”, which describes the dependence of a person’s earnings (more precisely, their logarithm) on the level of his education, work experience, length of time worked, and other factors.

The development of this class of functions is associated with the name of J. Mintzer, who proved that in the framework of such a model, the coefficient of the transforming variable will be equivalent to the indicator of the internal rate of return. This greatly simplified the assessment of the effectiveness of investments in education.

Estimates of internal rates of return have been criticized on the grounds that the high earnings of educated workers may not be indicative of the usefulness of the knowledge and skills they have acquired, but be a consequence of their natural gifts or coming from more affluent families.

However, empirical analysis shows that both the factor of ability and the factor of social origin do not play a large independent role.

Human capital: development, basic principles, theory and problems

Human capital (HC) is a set of knowledge and skills that are applied to meet the needs of an individual and society. This term has been used since 1961 thanks to the American economist Theodor Schultz. His followers developed this topic, describing the factors, methods and other features of the development of human capital.

The history of the development of the issue

In the scientific literature, information on the development of human capital began to appear actively in the second half of the 20th century. This term and the foundations of the theory were introduced by economists Theodor Schultz and Gerry Becker, for which they subsequently received the Nobel Prize.

The emergence of the theory of human capital has become a kind of response to private economic theories to the need for a real economy. The role of man and his potential in society was not fully disclosed.

Through a deep analysis of economic processes, human capital was identified as the main factor in the development of society.

For a long period of time, the understanding of human capital was limited to human knowledge and skills, and was also considered an exclusively social category.

Any investment in a person (for example, in education) was considered unproductive. By the end of the 20th century, attitudes towards this category had changed.

According to Fisher, human capital embodies the ability of a person to generate income.

Having studied the experience of advanced countries, Simon Kuznets came to the conclusion that the accumulated human capital is the main condition for the development of the economy.

And the economist Edward Denison focused not only on the quantity, but also on the quality of human resources (namely, on the importance of education).

Over time, the importance of health, emotional state, material well-being of workers and other factors was described.

Modern theory of human capital

Based on many years of research, a certain theory of human capital has developed. It can be briefly described as follows:

• acquires and accumulates knowledge, skills and abilities throughout life, applying them in various fields;
• the growth of material well-being affects the interest in the further development of human capital;
• in order to increase labor productivity and increase economic efficiency, it is advisable to use human knowledge, skills and abilities;
• refusal of current needs in favor of the formation of labor potential leads to an increase in the level of well-being in the future;
• motivation and stimulation are necessary conditions for the acquisition and accumulation of knowledge, skills and abilities.

How is human capital formed?

If we consider the formation of human capital on the example of a single person, we can conclude that on average this process takes 15-25 years. As a rule, it begins at 3-4 years.

At this point, the child already has enough information to start developing talents and acquiring knowledge. Of course, you should not write off the innate potential.

Further self-determination and self-realization depend on how successful education in childhood will be.

The most significant in terms of personal development is the period from 13 to 23 years (approximately). At this time, the most active general, creative and vocational training takes place. The higher the level of accumulated knowledge, the more significant the opportunities in terms of improving one's own well-being and improving the life of society as a whole.

Types of human capital

There are several types of human capital. Namely:

• General - all knowledge and skills, regardless of the sources of acquisition and ways of application.
• Specific - special knowledge and skills that have practical value.
• Positive - Accumulated human capital that provides a positive return on investment.
• Negative (or passive) - human capital that does not give a positive return.

Structure of the Cheka

The development of human capital occurs in several directions. Its structure is shown in the table:

Cheka Development Factors

Researchers identify several groups of human capital development factors. They are described in the table.

Principles of human capital management

Human capital management is based on some fundamental principles. Namely:

• Considering human capital as an asset that requires investment, rather than a liability that requires costs.
• Coincidence of the business model of the enterprise with the strategy of human capital development.
• Application of new methods, approaches and technologies in matters of human capital management.
• A balanced approach to motivating and stimulating labor resources.
• Targeting of investments in the formation of human capital.
• Regularity of quantitative and qualitative assessment of human capital.
• Scientific validity of activities.

Human capital development index

IN different countries the situation in the field of human resource development is not the same. An indicator such as the human capital index helps to conduct a comparative analysis. It is calculated and published annually by the analytical department of the World Economic Forum, together with experts from Harvard University and a reputable consulting company.

To assess how human capital is developing in a particular country (a total of 122 economies are analyzed), marks are given from 0 to 100. The score is given as a result of evaluating several parameters, namely:

• income (expressed in gross domestic product per capita);
• education (calculated based on the level of literacy among the population, the proportion of children and young people studying);
• longevity.

As of 2017, the leaders in the human capital development index were Finland and Norway. In the tail of the rating are Senegal, Mauritania and Yemen. Russia is on the 51st place in this list.

Measures to develop Cheka

The level of human capital development in a country largely depends on the efforts of the government. Here are the most popular measures around the world:

• ensuring the affordability of housing (as a rule, we are talking about favorable conditions for mortgage lending, as well as creating conditions for the development of the real estate market);
• ensuring the availability of education (both primary, secondary and higher);
• improving the welfare of citizens (in particular, by creating a sufficient number of jobs);
• providing a sense of personal security through the development of affordable insurance programs;
• ensuring the longevity of the population through the development of the medical system and ensuring labor safety;
• development of new forms of pension insurance.

Innovative approach to development

Time dictates its conditions, and therefore there is a need for new ways of developing human capital. The innovative approach includes the following measures:

• establishing links between educational institutions and the business environment;
• development of new educational services and appropriate methodological support;
• introduction of modern technologies and software into the educational process;
• interstate exchange of innovative methods;
• development of the consulting base.

Studying the problem of human capital development, it is worth paying attention to investments. We are talking about financial investments in education, health care, science, social issues and so on. Investments in HC have the following key features:

• Efficiency is directly related to life expectancy. The sooner financial injections begin, and the longer the working age of a person lasts, the greater the return will be.
• They multiply and accumulate, despite the tendency to moral and physical wear and tear.
• As soon as a person loses the ability to work (regardless of the reason), the efficiency of investments decreases sharply.
• If investments in human well-being are associated with illegal activities, they cannot be considered investments in human capital.
• The return on investment does not come immediately, it can be noticeable after 10-20 years.

Features of human capital in Russia

Russia is a huge country, which is characterized by some heterogeneity in terms of opportunities for the population. Thus, the development of human capital in the Far East, in Siberia or in the southern regions (and so on) will be somewhat different. Nevertheless, if we sum up the generalized calculations, the country averages will be as follows:

• Life expectancy (based on health assessment and actual longevity) is 70.3 years. It is worth noting that this is not the best indicator and is at the level of countries that are characterized by an average development of human capital.
• The literacy rate of the population (based on the number of years that people spend on education) is 15 years. The expected duration of education for future generations tends to decrease and is 12 years. Despite the negative dynamics, these indicators are quite good, typical for countries with a high level of human capital.
• The standard of living (measured by gross per capita income at purchasing power parity) is $23,286 (1,577,000 rubles). This indicator is typical for countries where the development of human capital is at an average level.

Problems of human capital in the domestic space

Are there problems in the development of human capital in Russia? Of course, there are also many of them. Here are the manifestations of the crisis of the Cheka by domestic researchers:

• the critical situation regarding the funding of science and education, which has a direct negative impact on the quality of research and teaching;
• depreciation of human capital in some areas of the economy, which leads to intellectual unemployment;
• the formation of a surplus of highly qualified personnel in some sectors, which is associated with a reduction in funding;
• a downward trend in the income level of people with higher education, which causes them to look for side jobs or change their profession to a low-skilled one;
• brain drain abroad;
• insufficiency or lack of market-oriented knowledge among the political and economic elite;
• discrepancy between the qualifications of officials and the new economic and social conditions;
• shortage of quality teaching staff;
• socio-psychological tension caused by economic and political instability, as well as a change in the usual behavioral model.

(page 1 of 6)

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND SCIENCE KHARKOV NATIONAL UNIVERSITY named after V.N. KARAZINA

Faculty of Economics

Department of Economic Theory

and economic methods of management

Course work:

Human Capital: Economic Content and Factors of Accumulation

Executor:

1st year student

group EE-11

Goncharova Ya.A.

Scientific performer:

e. n. Kim M.N.

Kharkiv - 2010

Introduction

Chapter I. The essence of human capital

1.1 Modern approach to the study of human capital

1.2 Methods for assessing human capital

1.3 Valuation of human capital based on targeted investment

1.4 Valuation of human capital by analogy with physical capital

1.5 Measuring human capital: challenges and opportunities

Chapter II. Factors of accumulation of human capital

2.1 The role of education and science in the accumulation of human capital

2.2 The development of health and culture as a factor in the accumulation of capital

2.3 Importance of human capital accumulation

Conclusion

List of used literature

1.1 Modern approach to the study of human capital

The theory of human capital studies the process of qualitative improvement of human resources, forming one of the central sections of the modern analysis of labor supply. With her nomination, a real revolution in labor economics is associated. The most important were:

1) highlighting “capital”, investment aspects in the behavior of agents in the labor market;

2) the transition from current indicators to indicators covering the entire life cycle of workers (such as lifetime earnings);

3) recognition of human time as a key economic resource.

The idea of ​​human capital has long roots in the history of economic thought. One of its first formulations is found in "Political Arithmetic" by W. Petty. Later, it was reflected in “The Wealth of Nations” by A. Smith, “Principles” by A.

Marshall, and the works of many other scientists. However, as an independent section of economic analysis, the theory of human capital took shape only at the turn of the 1950s and 1960s.

The merit of its nomination belongs to the famous American economist, Nobel Prize winner T. Schultz, and the basic theoretical model was developed in the book of G. Becker (also Nobel Prize winner) “Human Capital” (first edition 1964).

This book became the basis for all subsequent research in this area and was recognized as a classic of modern economics.

T. Schultz made a huge contribution to the formation of the theory of human capital at the initial stage of its development, to its acceptance by the scientific community and popularization. He was one of the first to introduce the concept of human capital as a productive factor. And he did a lot to understand the role of human capital as the main engine and foundation of industrial and post-industrial economies.

Schultz considered the accumulation of people's ability to work, their effective creative activity in society, maintenance of health, etc. to be the main results of investments in a person.

He believed that human capital has the necessary features of a productive nature. Cheka is capable of accumulating and reproducing.

According to Schultz, out of the total product produced in society for the accumulation of human capital, not 1/4 is used, as followed from most theories of reproduction of the 20th century, but 3/4 of its total value.

G. Becker, perhaps, was the first to transfer the concept of Cheka to the micro level. He defined the human capital of an enterprise as a set of skills, knowledge and skills of a person. As an investment in them, Becker took into account mainly the costs of education and training. Becker assessed the cost-effectiveness of education, first of all, for the worker himself.

He defined additional income from higher education as follows. From the income of those who graduated from college, he deducted the income of workers with a secondary general education. The costs of education were considered both direct costs and opportunity costs - lost income during training. Return on investment in education D.

Becker estimated as the ratio of income to costs, having received approximately 12-14% of the annual profit.

Becker made a special contribution to the theory of competition, strategy and development of the firm. He introduced a distinction between special and general investment in a person. And he emphasized the special importance of special education, special knowledge and skills.

Special training of employees forms the competitive advantages of the company, the characteristic and significant features of its products and behavior in the markets, and ultimately, its know-how, image and brand. Firms and corporations themselves are primarily interested in special training, and they finance it.

These works of Becker became the basis for the creation of modern theory of the firm and competition. General training is paid indirectly by the workers themselves, when, seeking to improve their skills, they agree to lower wages during the training period; they also receive income from the general investment.

On the contrary, special training is financed for the most part by the firms themselves, which also receive the main income from it.

The concept of dedicated human capital has helped explain why there is lower turnover among long-term workers in the same job and why firms fill vacancies primarily through internal promotions rather than through recruitment from outside the market.

Another area where G. Becker's contribution to the theory of human capital turned out to be especially significant is the analysis of the problems of economic inequality. Using the apparatus of supply and demand curves developed by him for investment in human capital, G.

Becker formulated a universal model for the distribution of personal income.

The unequal arrangement of demand curves for investment in human capital reflects inequality in the natural abilities of students, while the unequal arrangement of supply curves reflects the inequality in their families' access to financial resources.

The model proposed by G. Becker explains the inequality of income not only from labor (in fact, from human capital), but also from property (from other assets received as a gift or inheritance). The return on investment in people is, on average, higher than on investment in physical capital.

However, in the case of human capital, it decreases with an increase in the volume of investments, while in the case of other assets (real estate, securities, etc.) it decreases little or does not change at all.

Therefore, the strategy of rational families is as follows: first invest in the human capital of children, since the return on it is relatively greater, and then, as it decreases as it compares with the rate of return of other assets, switch to investing in them in order to subsequently transfer these assets to children.

From this, Becker concluded that families that leave inheritances make optimal investments in the human capital of children, while families that do not leave inheritances most often underinvest in their education.

The development of the theory of human capital went in line with the neoclassical direction. In recent decades, the principle of the optimizing behavior of individuals, which was initial for neoclassicists, began to spread to various spheres of non-market human activity.

The concepts and methods of economic analysis began to be applied to the study of such social phenomena and institutions as education, health care, migration, marriage and family, crime, racial discrimination, etc.

The theory of human capital can be seen as one of the manifestations of this general trend, called "economic imperialism".

Human capital is understood as the stock of abilities, knowledge, skills and motivations embodied in a person.

Its formation, like the accumulation of physical or financial capital, requires the diversion of funds from current consumption in order to obtain additional income in the future.

The most important types of human investment include education, training at work, migration, information retrieval, the birth and upbringing of children.

2.3 Importance of human capital accumulation

Human capital is recognized as the most valuable resource, more important than natural resources or accumulated wealth. It is human capital, and not material means of production, that is the cornerstone of competitiveness, economic growth and efficiency.

The theory of human capital by scientific methods proves the effectiveness, economic feasibility of investing in human development. That is why, on the scientific basis of the theory of human capital, the concept of human development appeared and received rapid development on a global scale.

The theory of human capital has become a turning point in developed countries in the motivation of human development, in the trends in attitudes towards the sectors of the social sphere that ensure this development - education, healthcare, culture, etc., in particular in terms of their resource provision.

Increasing the return on investment in human capital, in particular, spending on education, has contributed to the recognition of it by the ruling circles of many countries as an important factor in economic development, and by business leaders as a factor in increasing labor productivity and production efficiency.

To a large extent, thanks to the theory of human capital, non-formal education, adult education, and educational and professional programs of enterprises have gained public recognition.

In developed countries, and to a greater extent in countries striving for rapid and successful development, education is cultivated as an economically rational activity of a person, not only at her young age, but throughout her life. Lifelong or continuous education has become the conceptual embodiment of this idea.

This also affected the resource provision of education, and it is important not only to increase budget allocations, but also to diversify funding sources.

A vivid confirmation of the birth of the concept of human capital and human development in public practice is the experience of the socio-economic growth of countries that do not have significant natural resources, as well as countries with economies destroyed during the Second World War (Taiwan, Korea, Japan, Germany). Their development strategy was based on the human factor - the most important component of scientific and technological progress and an inexhaustible resource for economic growth. It was this strategy that ensured the high dynamics of economic development and its impressive social results. Another confirmation of the great importance and vitality of the theory of human capital is the fact that in developed countries investments in a person (in its development and social protection) since the 1950s have increasingly exceeded the size of material accumulation.

Production investments, with their undeniably important importance, are increasingly inferior to investments in human development, and the most important changes in the reproductive process of developed countries occur outside the sphere of material production. Human capital is a valuable resource, much more important than natural resources or physical capital.

According to the World Bank, in the structure of the national wealth of the 92 countries studied, human capital accounted for 2/3 in 1994, including about 3/4 in the higher developed countries.

This is not the only confirmation of the thesis that at the end of the twentieth century, the main factor in economic development and competitiveness at all levels is not the accumulation of material goods and services, but the accumulation of knowledge, experience, skills, health, motivation and other productive characteristics of people acquired in the process human development.

At the end of the 20th century, the idea that people and their development is the most important goal of social progress is gaining more and more support both in scientific economic research and in the development of national development programs and international cooperation projects.

Significant influence of the theory of human capital, receive new scientific evidence regarding the post-industrial society, reinforcing the views on the decisive role of man in economic dynamics, improving the efficiency of human activity at all levels.

The impact of human capital, primarily raising the level of education of workers, on economic growth is considered not only directly, through an increase in the productivity of the above-mentioned people, but also indirectly, through an increase in efficiency and acceleration of research and development and their mass implementation in all spheres of human life (which also requires an appropriate level of education of the masses of the population.

State regulation of the economy

With regard to capital, the regulatory role is manifested directly and indirectly. It finds its direct expression in the public sector...

State regulation of the economy: current trends

1.2.3. Regulation of capital accumulation and investment

State regulation in the field of capital accumulation and investment activities is aimed at ensuring the necessary rate of capital accumulation, targeted use of accumulation funds ...

History of the economy of the leading countries in the 18th century

fEngland as a classical country of primitive accumulation of capital

In different countries, the process of primitive accumulation of capital had its own national coloring, but, perhaps, in the most convex and embossed, one might say, classical form, it still took place in England. It is in this country...

Section I. Period of Primitive Accumulation of Capital

New ideas of the period of primitive accumulation of capital. Social utopias of the late Middle Ages. Mercantilism as the first school of political economy

I.1 Great geographical discoveries as prerequisites for the emergence of the process of primitive accumulation of capital

The great geographical discoveries are a period in the history of mankind that began in the 15th century and lasted until the 17th century, during which Europeans discovered new lands and sea routes to Africa, America ...

New ideas of the period of primitive accumulation of capital. Social utopias of the late Middle Ages. Mercantilism as the first school of political economy

I.2 Features of the process of primitive accumulation of capital

The main distinguishing feature of the era of primitive capital accumulation was, firstly, the development of commodity-money relations, the formation of a market economy, which left its mark on all aspects of public life of that time.)