Overview

For the most part, human capital theory emphasizes human cognitive development and the acquisition of knowledge and skills that enable enhanced productivity and earnings. In light of recent research findings, particularly concerning neurodevelopment and early childhood development, it is becoming apparent that this standard version of human capital theory has a far too limited conception of human capabilities and how they are created. Integrating Human Capital with Human Development considers recently accumulated knowledge related to the human brain's functioning and development to better understand the relationship between human capital and human development in successful economies. It shifts the focus of human capital theory to give full consideration to intangible, non-cognitive aspects of learning. This exciting new volume is an important addition to the study of human capital and behavioral economics more broadly.

Full Product Details

Author:   John F. Tomer
Publisher:   Palgrave Macmillan
Imprint:   Palgrave Macmillan
Edition:   1st ed. 2016
Dimensions:   Width: 14.00cm , Height: 1.50cm , Length: 21.60cm
Weight:   3.115kg
ISBN:  

9781349563593

ISBN 10:   1349563595
Pages:   231
Publication Date:   09 December 2015
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   In Print  
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Table of Contents

PART I: INTRODUCTION 1. Introduction PART II: HUMAN CAPITAL AND HUMAN DEVELOPMENT 2. Integrating Human Capital with Human Development: Towards a Broader and More Human Conception of Human Capital 3. Investments in Human Capital to Remedy Decision-Making Errors 4. Smart Persons and Human Development: The Missing Ingredient in Behavioral Economics PART III: HUMAN CAPITAL AND SOCIO-ECONOMIC DYSFUNCTION 5. Adverse Childhood Experiences, Poverty and Inequality 6. What Causes Obesity? And Why Has It Grown So Much? 7. Intangible Capital, Chronic Ailments, and Other Persistent Socio-Economic Problems PART IV: REMEDYING SOCIO-ECONOMIC DYSFUNCTION 8. Stemming the Tide of Obesity 9. Toward Lasting, Significant Improvement in Our Socio-Economies PART V: CONCLUSION 10. Conclusion

Reviews

Integrating Human Capital with Human Development is another very insightful and readable book from Tomer. He enhances the traditional concept of human capital to better integrate highly significant, sociological, psychological, and neurological variables. This opens the door to a more flexible, enriching, and realistic understanding of human decision-making, without throwing out the conventional human capital baby with the bathwater. - Morris Altman, Dean, Head, and Professor of Behavioural and Institutional Economics, Newcastle Business School, University of Newcastle, Australia; editor, Review of Behavioral Economics Tomer demonstrates that the conventional concept of human capital fails to capture key aspects of human development, and thus needs to be extended and reformulated to explain the full range of human capacities over the life cycle. Drawing on behavioral economics and cognitive psychology, his book provides new foundations for addressing a wide range of social problems, and makes an important contribution to developing a more humane economics. - John Davis, Professor of Economics, Marquette University, USA, and University of Amsterdam, Netherlands; author of Individuals and Identity in Economics Economists sometimes need to pause and reflect on how to prevent their concepts from becoming too narrow to do justice to reality. Tomer's book is an outstanding example of such a reflection. By broadening the notion of human capital to encompass the dimension of human development, he outlines an innovative and extremely fruitful behavioral extension of a central research field in economics. - Ulrich Witt, Professor of Economics, Max Planck Institute of Economics, Germany; editor in chief, Journal of Bioeconomics Based upon John Tomer's previous work, I would expect the final product to be a well-written and scholarly product. The significance of the project, in my view, is connecting the research on human development with the research on human capital. Human capital is about investing in a human being with the goal of making them more productive, analogous to an investment in physical capital being about the goal of providing labor with a tool that will make labor more productive. While I know very little about human development, I know that younger children do not yet have the brain development that enables certain abstract concepts to be understood, at least not as easily understood as when the brain has had more time to develop. Thus, it makes sense that human capital can be developed more readily with a good understanding of how it relates to human development. This is much of what education research is about, so John can borrow from that literature. However, there is much room for assimilating work that has be done, not only in education, but from nearly all disciplines. a. Its originality and relation to existing works in the field This work is clearly an extension of John's earlier works on personal capital, intangible capital, and organizational capital. It does seem to be original within economics to relate the well-known economic idea of human capital to human development, which I have not seen discussed much at all. Education research, and much psychology research, focuses on human development, but it does not link it to human capital development in the way an economist would. b. Structure, organization, and presentation of the material The proposed outline seems to be quite reasonable. c. Any problems regarding citations, terminology, accuracy, etc. No problems. d. Timeliness and likely shelf-life of the research The book is not timely in any jaw dropping sense. However, it is timely in that we still as a nation are struggling with issues like improving education and reducing obesity. This book should provide some insight into why some past approaches have not worked, and the book should point to some approaches that have promise. e. Likely competition or comparable books There is no competition in a direct sense. I know of no book that relates human capital development to human development per se. However, there is heavy competition in the general sense because there are so many research books like this. f. Likely readership (what fields will it appeal to? what level is it written to?) The book will appeal to economists who consider themselves to be of a behavioral bent, and it will appeal to economic psychologists, who tend to only adopt such a designation if they are in Europe. In terms of non-academics, it should be of special interest to teachers and parents who are seeking to develop youth, and employers who are hiring young workers. Policy makers may also find the book of interest because the book will present a big different look at the causes of some social ills, and thus suggest relatively novel potential solutions. 2. Critical analysis of its strengths and weaknesses As I noted above, the strength of this book would be its delineation of how human development impacts the development of human capital. It is clear that bad parenting translates into bad human development, which also then typically translates into low human capital development, low earnings, and a comparatively rough life. To the extent that specific connections can be made between the three (parenting-human development - -human capital development), the book will be important. The primary weakness I would predict is that it will not be easy to make connections between parenting and human development on the one hand, and human development and human capital development on the other hand. There is research out there, but it will be a big task to assimilate that literature in a meaningful way. The risk is that the book will not tell us anything we do not already know, and just present broad generalities. The book will be more interesting to me if it presents both general ideas and very specific research in support of those ideas, or at least specific examples that provide at least anecdotal support. I also have a concern when I see the chapter heading, 'Toward a More Empathic, Developmentally Oriented Society.' It is not clear what empathy has to do with the link that surely exists between human development and human capital development. The book has significant scientific potential, and that value can be diluted if the suggestions for changes in government policy end up layer values over the top of the science which all do not share. 3. Recommendations for revision (please indicate whether these are fundamental to the project's success or discretionary issues that should not affect a publication decision. Please specifically mention if any sections should be cut or expanded) I much like the outline of the book as it stands. I would hesitate to add much more or the book could easily lose its focus. Human capital is in just about everything, so I would say keeping focus will be a problem in writing this book. Because there is no detail describing what will be pursued in the policy oriented chapters, I cannot tell whether there is an intention here to present a 'normative' discussion (how the world should be) rather than restricting the discussion to a 'positive one' (this is how the world works). It is provocative to get normative. However, I believe keeping the book less prescriptive and more scientific will make the book better. That is, in part V, rather than saying 'we need to do X,' it would be better to say, 'the new insights presented in this book suggest that if we do X we will get Y and if we do W we will get Z.' The reader can then be left to choose which world is better, given the reader's values set. 4. Recommendation: 1) published as it stands or with minor revisions; 2) resubmitted after reworking; or 3) rejected. I recommend that the book proposal be accepted without significant revision.

Integrating Human Capital with Human Development is another very insightful and readable book from Tomer. He enhances the traditional concept of human capital to better integrate highly significant, sociological, psychological, and neurological variables. This opens the door to a more flexible, enriching, and realistic understanding of human decision-making, without throwing out the conventional human capital baby with the bathwater. - Morris Altman, Dean, Head, and Professor of Behavioural and Institutional Economics, Newcastle Business School, University of Newcastle, Australia; editor, Review of Behavioral Economics Tomer demonstrates that the conventional concept of human capital fails to capture key aspects of human development, and thus needs to be extended and reformulated to explain the full range of human capacities over the life cycle. Drawing on behavioral economics and cognitive psychology, his book provides new foundations for addressing a wide range of social problems, and makes an important contribution to developing a more humane economics. - John Davis, Professor of Economics, Marquette University, USA, and University of Amsterdam, Netherlands; author of Individuals and Identity in Economics Economists sometimes need to pause and reflect on how to prevent their concepts from becoming too narrow to do justice to reality. Tomer's book is an outstanding example of such a reflection. By broadening the notion of human capital to encompass the dimension of human development, he outlines an innovative and extremely fruitful behavioral extension of a central research field in economics. - Ulrich Witt, Professor of Economics, Max Planck Institute of Economics, Germany; editor in chief, Journal of Bioeconomics

Integrating Human Capital with Human Development is another very insightful and readable book from Tomer. He enhances the traditional concept of human capital to better integrate highly significant, sociological, psychological, and neurological variables. This opens the door to a more flexible, enriching, and realistic understanding of human decision-making, without throwing out the conventional human capital baby with the bathwater. - Morris Altman, Dean, Head, and Professor of Behavioural and Institutional Economics, Newcastle Business School, University of Newcastle, Australia; editor, Review of Behavioral Economics Tomer demonstrates that the conventional concept of human capital fails to capture key aspects of human development, and thus needs to be extended and reformulated to explain the full range of human capacities over the life cycle. Drawing on behavioral economics and cognitive psychology, his book provides new foundations for addressing a wide range of social problems, and makes an important contribution to developing a more humane economics. - John Davis, Professor of Economics, Marquette University, USA, and University of Amsterdam, Netherlands; author of Individuals and Identity in Economics Economists sometimes need to pause and reflect on how to prevent their concepts from becoming too narrow to do justice to reality. Tomer's book is an outstanding example of such a reflection. By broadening the notion of human capital to encompass the dimension of human development, he outlines an innovative and extremely fruitful behavioral extension of a central research field in economics. - Ulrich Witt, Professor of Economics, Max Planck Institute of Economics, Germany; editor in chief, Journal of Bioeconomics

“This book provides insights into how non-cognitive variables might feed into the productivity machine and also how they might impact broader dimensions of human development. … this book provides some important insights on the causes of significant socio-economic problems. Tomer does this by articulating a modeling narrative which he refers to as a human development framework that incorporates human capital (cognitive skills) and non-cognitive skills and understandings.” (Morris Altman, Journal of Bioeconomics, Vol. 19, 2017)

Author Information

John F. Tomer is Emeritus Professor of Economics at Manhattan College, USA. He is a founder and past President of the Society for the Advancement of Behavioral Economics. Tomer's research areas are behavioral economics and human capital. He has written three books and 50 articles.

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