Technology of Skill Formation

The concept “technology of skill formation” basically refers to the human capital and particularly skills formation mechanisms along the life cycle and especially during childhood, according to Flavio Cunha and James Heckman. In 1967, Yoram Ben-Porath first referred to the technology of skill formation in the following terms:

It is hard to think of forms of human capital that the individual can acquire as final goods—he has to participate in the creation of his human capital. His own abilities, innate or acquired, the quality of cooperating inputs, the constraints and opportunities offered by the institutional setup—all determine the “technology” or the production function. (p. 352)

Ben-Porath assumes that innate ability constitutes an input into the production of human capital, although its effect on the accumulation of human ...