REALIZACIÓN DE PROYECTO PILOTO: “CIRCUITO CERRADO DE CONTROL DE

general concept of capital that allowed in particular for human resources. In analogy to physical or …nancial capital, human capital is perceived as the stock of knowledge, skills, health, or abilities that is embodied in a per- son and that can be put to productive work. Moreover, human capital can be increased, alike investments in physical or …nancial capital, by training, schooling or health provisions (Becker 1962, 11).2

Despite its intuitive economic appeal, the concept of human capital has been the subject of severe debates. In particular, there is a great reluctance to model people as a stock of capital, worrying to reduce mankind to a mere material category. Only recently, the term ‘human capital’received the yearly doublespeak award for particularly obscure terminology by a German language watch association Schlosser(2005).

Although understandable from an ethical point of view, this concern can clearly be refuted. Rather than belittling the human nature, human capital theory recognizes the importance of people for economic growth and social progress. Irrespective of its unaesthetic semantics and inherent conceptual limitations, it incorporates the value of education, training, health, and social relationships into economic theory. Moreover, the notion of a capital stock of human resources embodies positive economic properties. Once skills and knowledge have been invested and built up, they enable people to reap a steady ‡ow of economic returns. Thereby their choices and welfare increase (Schultz 1961, 2).

In a well-known contribution, Becker (1962) analyzes incentives for hu- man capital investments. He focuses in particular on motives for on-the-

2_{Initially, the human capital literature drew attention to the shortcomings of neoclassi-}

cal economics and criticized in particular the prevailing assumption of homogeneous labor. It pointed out that the growth in per capita incomes across countries cannot be explained by using a standard production function approach with stocks of land and capital and

the size of the workforce. Therefore, early propopents of human capital theory (Schultz

1961,Becker 1962,Mincer 1974, e.g.) urged to reconsider the representation of people in economic models. They emphasized to account for workers’ skills and knowledge as key determinants of economic performance.

job training and questions the emergence of positive spillovers. In contrast to school training, on-the-job training is carried out at the workplace and through the …rm. It raises the productivity of the workforce in the future, but it involves costs to the training …rm at present, such as time, e¤ort, ma- terial, and equipment. Becker points out that resources spent for on-the-job training compete with alternative investment opportunities. Consequently, a …rm that incurs additional costs or lower revenues from providing training at present necessarily expects larger revenues or fewer expenditures in the future.

Since Becker’s assessment of on-the-job training possesses a central place in the training literature, let us sketch his approach. Let Et and Rt denote

expenditures and receipts from on-the-job training by a …rm in period t. Moreover, let r be the market rate of interest. Analogous to investments in physical or …nancial assets, an investment in human capital is carried out at most so that the present value of expenditures equals those of receipts. Thus, a …rm carries out a human capital investment to the extent of ful…lling equation (3.1). n X t=0 Rt (1 +r)t = n X t=0 Et (1 +r)t (3.1)

The receipts of on-the-job training are the increased marginal product of the worker, while expenditures obviously consist of training costs and wages to employ the worker.

Assume further that training be only given during the initial period,t= 0. With vt referring to the worker’s marginal product in period t, wt being the

wage paid to the worker and k standing for any training expenses, the …rms investment condition can be rewritten to

v0+ n X t=1 vt (1 +r)t =w0+k+ n X t=1 wt (1 +r)t (3.2)

Becker de…nes G as the excess of future receipts over future outlays, i.e.

G=Pn_t=11 vt wt

job training to the …rm. Using G, equation (3.2) simpli…es to

v0+G=w0+k (3.3)

This states that trainings costs and wage payments in the training period are equal to the marginal productivity and the return from training.

Note thatk only measures actual training expenses, but excludes oppor- tunity costs from training. Clearly, if the worker were not receiving training, she could produce vu

0 instead of v0, where v0u denotes the marginal product of an unskilled worker. Total training costs c thus are the sum of actual expenses and opportunity costs, c= (vu

0 v0) +k. Inserting into condition (3.3) then obtains

vu₀ +G=w0+c (3.4)

Given this basic set-up, Becker now introduces the distinction between general and speci…c training. General training raises the worker’s marginal product in all …rms, regardless whether the worker remains with the …rm or quits for another employer. Speci…c training, by contrast, gives rise to an increase in the marginal product of labor only in the training …rm. Depending on the type of training, the model makes di¤erent predictions.

3.2.1

General Training

General training is equally valuable to all …rms. This enables workers to use their skills in any employment and forces the training …rm to pay workers the corresponding market wage. Otherwise, workers could quit for another …rm and immediately yield the prevailing market wage. If labor markets are competitive, the market wage equals the marginal product of labor. This implies that …rms cannot draw any returns from training workers. All returns from the human capital investment are re‡ected in the higher wage and accrue fully to the worker.

Receiving the full bene…ts, however, the worker has proper incentives to bear the investment costs, too. Becker concludes that …rms might provide general training, but workers pay for it. They pay for training either directly

or indirectly via wage reductions in the investment period. Moreover, as all returns accrue to the worker, there are no spillovers from general training on other …rms. Thus, contrary to Pigou, training is e¢ cient (Becker 1962, 17).

Formally, if training is general and labor markets are competitive, wages are equal to worker’s marginal product, wt=vt. As G= 0, there are conse-

quently no returns from on-the-job training to the …rm. From the investment condition then follows equation (3.5)

w0 =v0 k =v0u c (3.5)

This clearly shows that the wage in the training period is reduced by the training costs, which implies that all costs of general training are incurred by the worker.

3.2.2

Speci…c Training

For speci…c training, Becker argues that …rms will be able to recover training costs. The worker cannot gain from quitting as these skills are of no use to other …rms. Thus, the competitive market wage remains una¤ected and the training …rm captures all returns from speci…c training in the form of increased worker productivity.

Formally, if training returns are speci…c, we now have G > 0. Firm optimal training investment is equal to G=c, and the investment condition then simpli…es to

w0 =v0u (3.6)

This states in contrast to general training that worker’s training wage remains una¤ected if training is speci…c. But since this investment is rewarding only as long as the worker stays with the …rm, some of the returns from this investment will be shared between the …rm and the worker in order to prevent workers from quitting. Also note that all returns are again collected by the private parties. Hence, there are no spillovers on other …rms by this type of investment and speci…c training is e¢ cient (Becker 1962, 21).

In sum, standard human capital theory negates positive spillovers from vocational training. As private and social returns do not diverge, human capi- tal investment will be at its socially optimal level. General training is paid for by the worker, speci…c training by both the employer and the worker. Becker acknowledges that insu¢ cient general training may indeed arise if workers are exposed to credit constraints and/or are risk averse (Becker 1962, 41f.). In this case, however, training subsidies or public training provision are not warranted. Rather, educational policy should address the problems prevail- ing in credit and insurance markets that cause these training limitations.

Although standard human capital theory is theoretically appealing, it faces profound criticism. Firstly, it is (at least partially) contradicted by empirical evidence. In contrast to its central proposition, a large number of empirical studies con…rm the existence of …rm-provided and …rm-…nanced general training. Despite the risk of quits, …rms actually incur substantial training costs to provide their workforce with general skills. This has also been demonstrated for apprenticeship training.3

Secondly, human capital theory is unable to explain some common fea- tures of apprenticeship training, such as the …xed duration of training con- tracts or the restrictions on unilateral termination. Under the assumption of competitive labor markets with full information and perfect contracting, these particularities should be super‡uous (Smits & Stromback 2001, 32).