Daniela Vidart

We underestimate the scale on which non-state institutions created human capital before the 1940s. We tend to think of works like Goldin and Katz on the schooling revolution in America for example where its clear that compulsory schooling and expansion of public schools boosted human capital. But this forgets the role of parochial schools, correspondence schools, industrial education bureaus, specific academies that were simply rarely recorded (example below). In my forthcoming book, I talk about these private complements to state-led human capital creation. But someone went much farther than I did. Daniela Vidart of UConn just released this paper at NBER showing that correspondence schools pre-1920 in America had a huge effect on increasing human capital among adult workers allowing them to shift to more skilled employment. We need to revisit many things in American history and realizes how crucial markets were in promoting growth and complementing state actions (to the point of making them more effective or, when harmful, ineffective).