Contribution of human capital to the economic potential of the region

Rapid technological renewal and digitalization of the economy entail transformation of labor relations and an intensive change in the content of labor. The current reality forces us to revise our views on methods of assessing the social and labor sphere and the human factor in the economy. Human capital is regarded as a generally recognized factor in social and economic development. The results of numerous studies of human capital do not yet provide an unambiguous answer about the degree of its direct impact on the nature and dynamics of economic growth. At the same time, a review of the results of many empirical studies yields a conclusion about a stable relationship between human capital and the dynamics of economic development. In the study of human capital, the significance of the region is very high, since the behavioral, activity and systemic characteristics of the development of society, including economic potential, are formed primarily at this level. To identify the prerequisites and conditions that affect the formation of regional human capital, the analysis of the state and development trends of human capital should be supplemented with the characteristics of the socio-economic environment, where this process takes place. The authors use an updated version of the MRW model to assess the contribution of the human capital in Kaliningrad region, the Russian exclave, to its socio-economic development, and to determine the parameters of the socio-economic development of the region that can be treated as an integral part of its human capital. The accumulated human capital realized through labor potential becomes in turn a key factor in the economic development.