Hugh Lauder (University of Bath)

“The Global Auction for High Skilled Jobs and the Death of Human Capital”

abstract

For decades, the idea that more education will lead to greater individual and national prosperity has been a cornerstone of developed economies. Indeed, it is almost universally believed that college diplomas give Americans and Europeans a competitive advantage in the global knowledge wars. This seminar presentation will challenge this orthodoxy. Drawing on a major international study, the argument is that the competition for good, middle-class jobs is now a worldwide competition–an auction for cut-priced brainpower—due to the global rise of mass  higher education and the rise of China and India, who are driving the new global high-skill, low-wage workforce.  In turn, these developments raise fundamental questions about human capital theory; data are presented which show that many of the trends assumed by the theory no longer apply in the United States and Britain.