Deck 5: Education As an Investment in Human Capital

Question 1

The United States leads the world in exporting valuable human capital.

Answer 1

True

Question 2

Human capital is the catalyst for activating physical capital of nations.

Answer 2

True

Question 3

Classical economics understood and accurately measured the value human capital.

Answer 3

False

Question 4

Adam Smith explained the concept of human capital in his great work, The Wealth of Nations, 1776.

Question 5

John Stuart Mill argued that English state schools were essential to economic growth.

Question 6

Mill objected to state instruction because government education in England was controlled by the Church of England.

Question 7

John Stuart Mill was not sufficiently conversant with human capital theory to value the education of women.

Question 8

According to Horace Mann, education is the grand machinery by which the raw material of human nature can be profitably cultivated.

Question 9

Theodore Schultz maintained that "classical economics" was deficient in understanding the value of human capital.

Question 10

Formal education is essential to skills and competence in the workforce.

Question 11

"Quantity," "quality" and "product mix" are important aspects of Bowen's concept of human capital.

Question 12

There are four basic ways of measuring the economic value of education.

Question 13

Investment in education yields private economic returns but not social returns.

Question 14

External market benefits have very little social value.

Question 15

Explain the classical economic view of the benefits of education.

Question 16

How was John Stuart Mill's attitude toward state schools tainted by church-state in England?

Question 17

What was Mill's central point in his renowned essay, The Subjection of Women, 1869?

Question 18

Expound on Horace Mann's ideas regarding a nation's creation of wealth.

Question 19

What is the concept of human capital? How does the idea expand on the classical idea of income and wealth?

Question 20

What is the essential element in the wealth of nations?

Question 21

Why is the "absorption effect" essential to the wealth of nations?

Question 22

How important is formal education to a productive economy? Explain.

Question 23

Briefly explain Bowen's six ways that worker productivity is increased by education.

Question 24

What are the four basic approaches to measuring the economic benefits to investment in human capital?

Question 25

Explain the cost-benefit approach to measuring the returns to investment in education.

Question 26

What does McMahon mean when he writes of "external nonmarket" benefits of education?

Question 27

Are there both private and social benefits to education? Explain.