Human capital

the human capital is in fact the whole of the aptitudes, talents, qualifications, experiments accumulated by an individual and which determine its capacity partly to work or to produce for itself or the others.

The human capital is a economic Concept introduces by Theodore W. Schultz, then specified by Gary Becker aiming at giving an account of the economic consequences of the accumulation of knowledge and aptitudes by an individual or a company. It thus includes/understands

not only the knowledge, the experiment and the talents (Capital-knowledge),
but also its physical health or its resistance to the diseases.

The operation of the human capital

Just like the Capital Physical, the human capital is acquired (education), preserves (continuing education, medicine of prevention) and gives dividends, in the form of an increase in the productivity and undoubtedly in the wellbeing of its holder. Contrary to the physical capital, it is not separable of its holder and very often takes an aspect of public property.

The economic role

It in addition has a function of particular Production and important externalities on the remainder of the economy. So it is about a central concept of the economy of the development, economy of the education and more largely of the Économie of the knowledge (capital-knowledge).

The analysis founder in the field of the human capital is that of Gary Becker.

The cultural capital according to Pierre Bourdieu

Pierre Bourdieu developed the theories of Emile Durkheim concerning the " capital cultural " of an individual, concept close to that of human capital, which is rather relative for him to a group of individual. The cultural capital is three-dimensional:

the " capital cultural built-in " : it is the fruit of the socialization differentiated according to social environments (language, various scholarly abilities, ways of being held and of behaving in company…).
the " capital cultural objectified " : it indicates the tools for culture which materialize in the form of objects had by a person (tables, library, piano, etc). This capital has value only by the transmission in the manner of making use of it.
the " capital cultural institutionalized " : it devotes the transformation of a personal culture into titles and diplomas sanctioning a socially recognized aptitude.

See too

Pole of competence, economy of the knowledge, economy of education

External bonds

Capital New papers and articles one human and human resources management, has free Newsletter edited by the RePEc academic Project

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