Working on heterogeneous human capital*

Abstract

At the beginning of the nineteen-eighties, the Dutch economy was in a poor state.Successive oil crises had hit the industrial sector particularly hard. This promptedgovernment to set up an authoritative committee, led by former Shell presidentWagner. The committee was asked to advise on the creation of a new industrialélan and revitalisation of the economy. One of the committee''s recommendationswas a better match between education and occupational practice, in order tobenefit sufficiently from the contribution of education and training to economicdevelopment.1 In the wake of these recommendations, the ministry of Educationdecided to commission the economics faculty of Maastricht University with a longtermresearch assignment, the primary aim of which was to make the labour marketmore transparent for education decisions.labour economics ;