Isn’t it not valued in standard accounting because it’s not an asset that’s owned by the company in question; its owned by employees of the company? The company is ~ leasing the human capital by paying a salary.
I admit that it makes the analysis more abstract, and therefore more suspect, but we can totally compare the financial ROI of say Union Pacific buying a marginal train engine to Joe Shmoe getting a master’s degree in engineering.
Does it seem crazy that most of human wealth is actually in the form of knowledge and expertise instead of in “stuff”?[1]
To the extent that a master’s degree’s primary mechanism of action is just signaling conscientiousness, intelligence, and conformity, then it does seem pretty crazy. It can’t be the case that most of our real wealth is signaling, for reasons related to why all the financial capital nets out to 0.
But I think that Master’s in engineering is a combination of teaching skills and certification of mostly innate properties.
Isn’t it not valued in standard accounting because it’s not an asset that’s owned by the company in question; its owned by employees of the company? The company is ~ leasing the human capital by paying a salary.
I admit that it makes the analysis more abstract, and therefore more suspect, but we can totally compare the financial ROI of say Union Pacific buying a marginal train engine to Joe Shmoe getting a master’s degree in engineering.
Does it seem crazy that most of human wealth is actually in the form of knowledge and expertise instead of in “stuff”?[1]
To the extent that a master’s degree’s primary mechanism of action is just signaling conscientiousness, intelligence, and conformity, then it does seem pretty crazy. It can’t be the case that most of our real wealth is signaling, for reasons related to why all the financial capital nets out to 0.
But I think that Master’s in engineering is a combination of teaching skills and certification of mostly innate properties.