Advocates of apprenticeship programmes often argue as if it is simply a matter of historical accident that such investment by US firms has been hindered. This paper explores the structure of incentives underpinning the German system of apprenticeship training. First, we describe three...

In this paper we relate trends in the accumulation of human capital in Britain, Germany and the United States to overall production strategy and productivity trends. In the United States a strategy of standardized mass production led to high levels of labour productivity and concentration on the...