On 4 November 2014, Prague hosted the international part of 17th Year of Conference Human Capital and Investment in Education entitled Investments in Human Capital held by the University of Finance and Administration (VŠFS), CERGE-EI and the Institute for Social and Economic Analyses (ISEA). The main topic of the conference was the return on investment in education and the increase in the value of human capital on the labour market. The participants paid special attention to the return on investment in education in the Czech Republic in the international context.
The introductory speech of the world-famous economist of the school system and education prof. George Psacharopoulos presented a fascinating history of the research focusing on the return on investment in human capital. One of the significant results demonstrated that the most profitable investment was related to human capital for the youngest possible age. He clarified what instructions of the human capital theory he had presented to governments for dozens of years and what ways they should or should not support the education in their countries.
Other presentations of leading Czech, American and Taiwanese sociologists and economists showed results of comparison researches focusing on the impact of education and qualifications on the income generated within the project „Availability and heterogeneity of the return on university education“ supported by Grant Agency of the Czech Republic. The key conclusions presented at the conference are:
- The influence of measured qualifications on the income is substantially smaller in Central European Countries (Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia) than in innovation-oriented European economies (Denmark, Belgium, the Netherlands), whereas the worst situation was discovered in the Czech Republic with the biggest influence of the gender (to the disadvantage of women);
- The observed return on university education is only imaginary to a certain extent, especially in countries where the access to university education is or was highly selective in the past, e.g. in the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
The Czech part of 17th Year of Conference Human Capital and Investment in Education shall take place on 5th December 2014 in the Congress Centre of the University of Finance and Administration. For more details, please visit: http://www.vsfs.cz/lidskykapital/?id=2174-pracovni-cast
