Essays on Human Capital

Abstract

This thesis aims to investigate human capital through three interlinked components. The first part of the study examines impact of the 1997 education reform on individual’s earnings in Türkiye. Türkiye’s national education system has undergone significant changes in the last 30 years. The extension of mandatory schooling to eight years in 1997 and the requirement for secondary education in 2012 are significant policy changes that aimed to improve educational attainment in the country. The cohort born after 1986, who benefited from the 1997 education reform, experienced higher returns to education, which is reflected in their earnings compared to those born before 1987 with the same level of education and experience. The second section of the study analyzes human capital wealth through a proposed monetary approach to capture the value of human capital. Even though Türkiye has a great potential of her youth, the literature doesn’t shed light on how Türkiye can benefit from its potential. To do that, estimating human capital wealth is crucial. Human capital wealth is estimated as the total present value of the expected future labor income that could be generated over the lifetime of people currently living in a country. The third section analyzes the direct impact of smoking on human capital in Türkiye by introducing a new method of measuring the loss of human capital wealth. Accounting for approximately one-third of total deaths, smoking is the second leading risk factor for health in Türkiye following high systolic blood pressure. It is estimated that premature deaths attributable to smoking erodes about $66 (in 2021 constant US$) from the per capita wealth in 2020. In other words, eliminating smoking in Türkiye would reduce premature deaths, and this in turn would boost Türkiye’s human capital wealth by approximately 0.8 percent per year.