The Accumulation of Human and Nonhuman Capital, Revisited

In the over 25 years since Jorgenson and Fraumeni ( 1989 ) published their first article integrating human capital measures with the national accounts, the Bureau of Economic Analysis's (BEA's) U.S. National Income and Product Accounts (NIPAs) and U.S demographics have changed significantly. The original paper is a national income accounting paper with production and factor outlay, income, receipt and expenditure, capital accumulation, and wealth accounts in current and constant prices. In this paper, we update the Jorgenson‐Fraumeni human capital estimates and integrate them into the latest NIPA accounts. A comparison of the aggregates for the U.S. and their trends between the earlier 1949–19 period and later 1998–2009 period is informative. The benefit from integrating human capital components into BEA's NIPA over a long historical time period allows us to quantify the impact of the end to the gains in average educational attainment, changes in female labor force participation, and the possible impact of the greying of America.