Development expert Jeffrey Sachs highlights the need for various
types of capital to sustain economic development:
Sachs notes:
“The key is to reflect
on six kinds of capital goods: business capital, infrastructure, human capital,
intellectual capital, natural capital, and social capital. All of these are
productive, but each has a distinctive role. …
These six forms of
capital work in a complementary way. Business investment without infrastructure
and human capital cannot be profitable. Nor can financial markets work if
social capital (trust) is depleted. Without natural capital (including a safe
climate, productive soils, available water, and protection against flooding),
the other kinds of capital are easily lost. And without universal access to
public investments in human capital, societies will succumb to extreme
inequalities of income and wealth.”