Estimating the Value of the Human Capital Stock in Iran: Income-Based Approach

The purpose of this paper is to estimate the value of human capital in Iran from 2005 to 2014. In the literature, there are two general approaches for estimating the value of human capital stock: the cost-based approach and the income-based approach. The first approach has been selected by this study. The analytical model developed in this study is mainly based on Jorgenson-Fraumeni’s model. This paper has used Markov transition probability matrix to calculate the probability of movement of people between different levels of education. Also to compute income from work of persons’ data, this study employed Mincerian wage equation. The findings show that the value of human capital in current prices in 2014 is about 244370 trillion Rials. The same figure in 2005 is 63769 trillion Rials. Despite the increase in the value of human capital at current prices in 2005-14, the real value (in 2004 constant prices) dropped from the 53359 to around 45937 trillion Rials. However, in 2004 the estimated value of human capital stock is 13 times more than the physical capital stock and 58 times more than the gross domestic product (GDP). The results also show that for men the share of total value of human capital stock has increased and the same value for women has decreased over ten years (2005-2014). In addition, the results indicate that on the average, about 85 percent of the value of the human capital stock of male belongs to Diploma and less. About 62 percent of the value of the human capital stock of female belongs to Diploma and less.