人力资本投资、沉淀成本与制度设计

由于人力资本投资时沉淀成本十分普遍,仅仅依靠市场制度实现经济价值并非最优。在这种情况下,需要采取其他非市场制度,其根本目的在于补偿沉淀成本。否则,因沉淀成本的存在会导致不同的经济后果:第一,因沉淀成本导致人力资本投资不足;第二,因沉淀成本导致人力资本既不增加投资也不减少投资,仅仅处于维持现况;第三,因沉淀成本导致人力资本投资过度,产生路径依赖。因此,需要相应的制度保障投资成本回收,尽量避免出现沉淀成本,不至于影响人力资本再生产过程,这是我们进行人力资本投资最根本的出发点。

Investments in Human Capital, Sunk Costs,and Institutional Design

The paper is to analyze the investments in human capital in terms of sunk costs. Based on the investment model with sunk costs,we show that sunk costs have a great adverse effect on the investments in human capital. Because of the existence of sunk costs in investments in human capital,they adversely influence the investment behavior of the investors. In principle we provide the institutional solutions to the investments in human capital,that is,reduce the amounts of sunk costs,and increase in recovery of production costs.