Yuto Kitamura and I co-edited a volume called Public Policy Innovations for Human Capital Development for the Asian Productivity Organization, which is an international organization based in Tokyo. The project started in 2017 with a coordination meeting in Sri Lanka. There we met representatives from 11 countries across Asia (see photo at left). Over the next two years, we worked with teams to undertake case studies in each country.

The final book includes 6 country case studies, including from the Republic of China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, and Sri Lanka. Yuto and I argued in our introduction that the climate crisis is not compatible with economic growth. Since human capital theory aims to increase economic growth, we argued that the very idea of human capital needs to be re-thought. The country case studies then provided a starting point for re-thinking human capital development. We see this as a first step in trying to re-articulate human capital theory in ways that acknowledge the climate emergency.