THE ECONOMIC VALUE OF EDUCATION: Studies in the Economics of Education

by Mark Blaug (Editor)

This important reference collection - prepared by a leading authority in the field - presents a careful selection of the most important articles and papers in the economics of education. It focuses in particular on the notion of education as investment rather than consumption. This field was pioneered by three American scholars - Jacob Mincer, Gary Becker and Theodore Schultz - who demonstrated that education is indeed a way in which individuals can invest in themselves in the simple sense of incurring financial costs today in order to enhance potential earnings tomorrow. There is a very strong association between education and earnings in the labour markets in both capitalist and communist countries and it is this generalisation that forms the bedrock of the doctrine of education as human capital. This major book provides testimony to the excitement and controversy that continue to be hallmarks of the economics of education and the theory of human capital.

560 pages, Hardcover

Published April 6, 1992

About the author

Mark Blaug is a British economist (naturalised in 1982), who has covered a broad range of topics over his long career. In 1955 he received his PhD from Columbia University in New York. Besides shorter periods in public service and in international organisations he has held academic appointments in - among others - Yale University, the University of London, the London School of Economics and the University of Buckingham. He currently lives in Leiden and works as Visiting Professor in the Netherlands, University of Amsterdam and Erasmus University in Rotterdam, where he is also co-director of CHIMES (Center for History in Management and Economics).
Mark Blaug has made far reaching contributions to a range of topics in economic thought throughout his career. Apart from valuable contributions to the economics of art and the economics of education, he is best known for his work in history of economic thought and the methodology of economics.