HUMAN CAPITAL THEORY: FORMATION OF SCIENTIFIC CONCEPT

The prerequisites of formation of the human capital theory as a scientific concept on the basis of analysis of works representatives of classical political economy, Marxism, neoclassical political economy are defined in the article. W. Petty first used the value approach to evaluating a person, estimated national wealth of England and made the first attempt to estimate the population of the country. A. Smith coined the term "economic man", brought the concept of productivity, and divided it into productive and unproductive. D. Ricardo placed emphasis on the need for market regulation of wages. J.S. Mill considered the problem of the cost of labor and demand for it, the differences in wages, productive and unproductive labor, the regulation of wages, poor relief, etc. K. Marx extended the concept of the dual nature of work, divided it into abstract and concrete, and gave a detailed description of the concept "labor". However, the portion of capital which is embodied in the labor force and that in the manufacturing process changes its value, Marx attributed to the variable capital. A. Marshall explained the differences in wages, depending on the health, abilities and skills of the employee, as well as time spent in training. A.C. Pigou used the concept "human capital" in the context of justifying the need for investing in people, worked out the theoretical foundations of the study of motives and cha-racteristics of investment in human capital. J.B. Clark noted that the value of skilled labor is much higher than the unskilled. Yet in 1924 S.G. Strumilin substantiated the economic value of the most important factors of labor skills, performed the calculation of the efficiency of investment in learning for the period 1918–1923, compared the effectiveness of investments in learning, depending on the level of education.The basic conceptual regulations of the theory of human capital are allocated in the article. For example, T.W. Schultz distributed the capital on the human and material, substantiated the need to invest in human capital to gain revenue in the future. G.S. Becker substantiated the human capital as an economic category, identified the special and general investment in people, carried calculation of the cost-effectiveness of education, highlighted the investment aspects of the behavior of agents in the labor market, etc. J.A. Mincer performed an empirical analysis of income redistribution to explain differences in inequality and asymmetry of workers` revenues, the interpretation of a form of age-earnings profiles, the interpretation of differences