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Human Capital and the Growth of Good US Jobs

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Abstract

This chapter explores the economic development impacts of human capital, defined as the education and skills that workers use in their jobs. Examining the impacts of multiple indicators of human capital, Gabe shows that educational attainment, the percentage of a region’s workforce in creative occupations, and several types of job-related skills (e.g., critical thinking, management, technology, idea generation) help the growth of good jobs. Several of the human capital indicators positively impact the growth and productivity of metropolitan areas, suggesting that these characteristics are contributing to a divergence of the economic fortunes of US regions. The impacts of educational attainment and creative economy employment are considerably stronger in metropolitan areas, especially very large regions, as compared to states.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    This figure was calculated using data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

  2. 2.

    These statistics were calculated using data from County Business Patterns of the U.S. Census Bureau.

  3. 3.

    These figures are from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

  4. 4.

    Vijay Mathur (1999) also argues that human capital helps regions “directly” through the high productivity of educated and skilled workers and “indirectly” through “spillover effects.”

  5. 5.

    For more information about O*NET, see the article by Norman Peterson and (numerous) colleagues (2001).

  6. 6.

    Educational attainment figures are from the U.S. Census Bureau.

  7. 7.

    These nine states are Colorado, Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Vermont, and Virginia.

  8. 8.

    These metros are Ames (Iowa), Ann Arbor (Michigan), Boston, Boulder (Colorado), Bridgeport (Connecticut), Columbia (Missouri), Corvallis (Oregon), Durham-Chapel Hill (North Carolina), Gainesville (Florida), Iowa City (Iowa), Ithaca (New York), San Francisco, San Jose, Santa Fe (New Mexico), Trenton (New Jersey), and Washington D.C.

  9. 9.

    A study by Brian Knudsen et al. (2008) also found a positive interaction between the effects of big cities (i.e., population density) and creativity.

  10. 10.

    For more information about how I connected the O*NET variables to the workforce employment figures of states and US metropolitan areas, see the articles by Jaison Abel et al. (2014), and Todd Gabe (2009).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Maine, Orono, Maine, USA

    Todd M. Gabe

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Gabe, T.M. (2017). Human Capital and the Growth of Good US Jobs. In: The Pursuit of Economic Development. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-52476-4_4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-52476-4_4

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-52475-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-52476-4

  • eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)

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