Human Capital: the Original Method of Its Evaluation

Abstract

Currently, the world economy and the Russian economy, in particular, expect radical changes associated with the transition to a new Kondratiev cycle. The changes will be reflected in the transition to a new economic structure, new technologies, to fundamental changes in the model of the economy. Human capital is a leading factor in upcoming innovations. The high importance of human capital determines the need not only for its qualitative and structural characteristics, but also for quantitative assessment, which requires the development of appropriate methods. The UN statistical Commission is in favor of considering the human capital stock as one of the indicators of the system of national accounts that determine the position of each country's economy in the international rankings. Today, a theoretical discussion continues about what human capital is and what its structure is. We believe that human capital is a stock of abilities and characteristics acquired by a person, formed by investments in their development and bringing returns in the form of high wages, job security, freedom of choice of place and duration of work, career growth, etc. As for the structure of human capital, we believe that its main elements are education capital, health capital, and social capital. The paper focuses on the assessment of the capital of education. A brief analysis of the methods of its calculation is given and an original method of evaluation is proposed, which is tested on the data characterizing the capital of education of the student Yevgeny Rusanov.