Measuring human capital for Norway 2007-2014

The estimated results must be interpreted as experimental and are not yet an official version of the value of the Norwegian human capital stock. The lifetime income approach employed in this study, compared to those applied before, has been moderated in several aspects, including a detailed implementation methodology, several practical assumptions, and the choice of exogenous parameters. 

Given the assumed annual real income growth rate of 2.3% and discount rate of 5%, both the estimated total and active human capital, regardless of gender, show an increasing trend over the period 2007-2014 for Norway. In addition, the estimated stock values of both total and active human capital are several times larger than that of either fixed capital or oil and gas wealth, indicating that Norway is rich not only in natural resources, but also in human capital, and the latter is by far the most important component in the total Norwegian national wealth. 

Finally, to align human capital measures with the Norwegian national accounts, the distribution of Norwegian active human capital by industry in 2014 is presented. Further industry distribution both for the Males and for the Females, as well as by different educational levels are also provided. The presented distributions have given rise to a number of interesting observations.

Author: Gang Liu