Provision of Human Capital Literature Review

The ONS is intending to recruit academic and/or private sector economists and statisticians to deliver a literature review on recent impactful developments in the field of Human Capital. Note, other professions and sectors are welcome to apply, though they will still need to demonstrate the criteria outlined below. As a common definition for the rest of the tender document, Human Capital is defined as the "value of individuals' skills and knowledge as it can productively be applied to the economy". The result will assist ONS in shaping its future research priorities on the subject of Human Capital. Objectives: The aim of the project is to provide an easily accessible, and quick resource for ONS statisticians and colleagues when compiling methods and data sources for the potential improvement of ONS Human Capital estimates. This will take the form of a targeted literature review on the following areas: 1. Factors which have empirically and theoretically been highlighted as significant to human capital at an aggregate and individual level. 2. Analysis of determinants of earnings (including the use of Mincerian approaches) paying particular attention to sources used, methods applied and assumptions made. As a guide, you are expected to undertake a review of 15-20 of the most innovative, impactful and high-quality papers on Human Capital relevant to the UK against each area. This may include analysis for a country outside the UK, as long as the review can highlight how there is relevance for the UK context. A wider, policy-related set of factors is sought out, and where possible the papers should have considered how to try and account for causal rather than associative factors. For causal empirical research, the review should capture which methodological steps have been taken in trying to ascertain causal effects explicitly. We expect the majority of the papers included in the review to have been published no more than 10 years ago at the date of delivery, to satisfy the 'recent' element of the brief, or to otherwise be identifiably seminal. Outputs: The ONS requires a final report of around 30 pages per area highlighting strengths and weaknesses of different sources, methods and assumptions as described by the authors of each paper, alongside a detailed bibliography including identified reading and extended explanation of the rationale behind the selection/ non-selection of papers. The report should also synthesise the overall findings of the papers considered.

The tender will be published via ONS' e-tendering portal, In-Tend. Only responses received via In-Tend will be accepted. If you are interested in this opportunity and would like to bid, please register on In-Tend via the link below:

https://in-tendhost.co.uk/ons/aspx/Home

Please inform Jay Crawley once you have registered. We will then attach your organisation to the Project.