Human Capital. http://t.co/rSwMFjOcEl—
Gem Reucroft (@HR_Gem) July 17, 2015

In a paper I wrote some years ago I explained the origin of that concept of human capital as follows:

The term ‘human capital’ was initially controversial, but the analytical concept was not. The analysis of human capital has many famous parents and grandparents (Kiker 1966).

Sir William Petty published the first analysis of the value of human capital in 1690. There were sophisticated analyses of investments in education and training and their implications for wage differentials, labour productivity and occupational choice by Adam Smith in 1776, Alfred Marshall in 1890 and Milton Friedman and Simon Kuznets in 1945.

Richard Cantillon, John Locke, John Stuart Mill, Adam Smith and Karl Marx all proposed that training rather than natural ability was more important in understanding occupational wage differentials. Adam Smith and Alfred Marshall referred to education and training as capital investments…

There was quite a jump in life expectancy in the decades of the 1950s and 1960s, followed by slow progress for white females and black females. In the case of men of both races, the situation appears to be steady progress in post retirement life expectancy since 1950. Black male life expectancy actually fell in the 1960s for those aged 65.

Figure 1: life expectancies at age 65 by sex and race, USA, 1950 – 2010

Source: Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.

via Italy is the most likely country to leave the euro – The Washington Post.