WASHINGTON — In recent decades, economists have been struggling to make use of the concept of human capital, often defined as the abilities, skills, knowledge and dispositions that make for economic success. Yet those who use the term often assume that to conceptualize a phenomenon is a first step to manipulating it. And, indeed, "human-capital policy" is now much in fashion. But what if many of the abilities and dispositions in question are a product of history, capable of being understood and explained but not readily replicated?

Simon Kuznets, one of the 20th century's great economists, was a pioneer of human-capital theory. Not long before he died, Kuznets recommended to a young colleague that one ought study the role of Jews in economic life.

By and large, economists and other social scientists have neglected the history of Jews and capitalism, for reasons that are understandable, though unconvincing. For most economists, the extent to which modern capitalism has been shaped by earlier cultural predispositions is a source of puzzlement at best, if not merely a factor to be dismissed.