How can economic science help you decide which college to attend, or how many children to have, or even who to marry? Pablo A. Peña is an associate instructional professor of economics at the University of Chicago and the author of Human Capital for Humans: An Accessible Introduction to the Economic Science of People. In the book, he applies economist Gary Becker’s human capital theory to everyday things like parenting, housework, marriage, and aging. Pablo and Greg discuss why human capital has long been an overlooked field in economics, how it shows up in household production, parenting tradeoffs between time and money, fertility’s quantity vs. quality tradeoff, and how AI could be shifting valuable human capital skills toward critical thinking, creativity, and adaptability. *unSILOed Podcast is produced by University FM.*
