Tag Archives: Economics

While economics is often called the dismal science, there is cheerful news coming from an area of study called the economics of skill development. This field analyzes the relationship between hard and soft skills—our cognitive and noncognitive domains—and how these domains affect wages and labor-market success. The good news is that, beyond simply mapping these relations, this discipline also identifies skills across industries and careers that boost upward mobility and promote pathways to opportunity. And its findings on the importance of soft skills such as communication and cooperation for wage progression have implications for school and life.