Cliometrics and the Concept of Human Capital

The role played by human capital in the historical process of economic development is an important issue in cliometrics. This chapter traces the history of the human capital concept and underlines that it has undergone criticism since its origins. Among these criticisms, we stress that the human capital research program was plagued with measurement difficulties. This issue has recently fostered a sense of strong reluctance toward the concept. Portraying a growing debate in cliometrics – the role of human capital in the first stage of the industrialization process in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries in Western Europe – we emphasize that recent cliometric contributions on the issue open up stimulating lines of thought about what human capital is and how it can adequately be measured.