Most economists believe that human capital – that is, education level – is a key factor in regional development. But it’s now dawning on more and more researchers that the kinds of work people do may be more important than just the overall level of education. This focus on what people do, as opposed to what we learn in school – the conventional economist’s measure of human capital – is what originally set me on to write about the creative class in the first place.
This recent report by Todd Gabe of the University of Maine and Jaison Abel of the New York Fed takes a detailed look at the role of occupations and skill in regional growth. The study finds that “knowledge associated with the provision of producer services and information technology are particularly important determinants of economic vitality in U.S. metropolitan areas.” It also reinforces the findings of my own research with Charlotta Mellander and Kevin Stolarick that specific occupations and job categories are especially important to economic development – management, business and finance, science and technology, and also arts, culture, and entertainment.
August 29th, 2008 at 6:46 pm
Sadly missing: anything to do with the sick, the children, the elderly, the disadvantaged. Yes, “economic vitality” is a Yuppy speciality …
August 30th, 2008 at 6:17 pm
Mike’s so right. I’m an old CMU Engineering grad; one of those who aided in the demise of the steel making industry in the late 70’s. I got out of the field because I saw that not many creative and educated folks were helping in the helping professions. So I’ve spent about 20 years in social services; and we still are way short on caring people (over the age of 35, I mean)in these fields…
September 4th, 2008 at 3:26 pm
Schooling, that is years is first, an economic input. Try to run an economy without education. Second, years of schooling is just a proxy variable for measuring the input. Schooling with experience might be a better measure. In fact if we had upto the minute neuropsychology data on what we have taken in we might we able to get at the bottom of this. The new frontier.