Paul Krugman: The Evolution of Human Capital

Nancy Folbre, an economics professor at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, suggested in recent commentary for The New York Times that the golden age of human capital — roughly speaking, the era in which the economy strongly demanded the kinds of skills we teach in liberal-arts colleges and universities — is already behind us.

She may well be right: after a long stretch when both technology and trade seemed to be undermining only manual labor, it does look as if many skilled occupations are now under threat by Big Data, Bangalore, or both.