№ 2019/3

The article examines theoretical and practical aspects of interconnection between national wealth and human capital. The nature of human capital and its economic content has been determined. A historical and economic analysis of human capital theory formation, as well as methods for assessing its value as a part of national wealth, was carried out. The authors’ category \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\"human capital\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\" was formed on the basis of generalization of theoretical approaches to human capital definition. Human capital is established to be the main value of modern society, the main component of national wealth, which means not only innate human abilities, knowledge, skills and experience, but also ability, as well as the opportunity provided by the state for lifelong learning and improvement in particular professional field. It has been proved that meritocratic values and principles of social justice play important role in human capital development, as well as the economic, political and social agents’ perception of the mechanisms that ensure sustainable economic development, production growth and reduction of economic inequality. It was found that different approaches to understanding the essence of human capital have direct influence on the methods for its estimation. Special attention is paid to new approaches of human capital assessment as a component of national wealth, in particular, the World Bank human capital and wealth accounting approaches. On the basis of economic and statistical analysis of the components, as well as growth dynamics of national wealth of different groups of countries, the authors concluded that the level of human capital investment depends on the type of economic development and country’s strategic economic priorities. The review of national wealth dynamics in selected Asian countries for 1995–2014 has shown that productive capital accumulation precedes increase in human capital, since high-tech industries contribute to qualitative development of work force.

Keywords: human capital, national wealth, human capital theory, national wealth structure, sustainable economic development, economic growth