Abstract
<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title> <jats:p>This book investigates how advanced capitalist democracies have created high-level skills to compete in the knowledge economy, focusing on the role of higher education systems in national skill formation systems. It identifies a common trend of higher education expansion since the mid-1990s, driven by technological change and increasing demand for non-routine cognitive skills, but highlights persistent national differences in how countries organize, govern, and reform their higher education systems to meet labour market needs. The book develops a novel theoretical framework that links sectoral specialization of national knowledge economies (advanced manufacturing vs. high-end services) and institutional features of higher education systems (public vs. private financing; horizontal vs. vertical differentiation). Intersecting these two dimensions, it proposes four ideal-typical state responses—allocation, modification, facilitation, and information—to explain national variation in upskilling strategies. Empirical analysis combines cross-national quantitative data and four case studies (Germany, South Korea, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom) to illustrate how institutional context and political dynamics mediate the alignment of higher education with labour market demand, leading to distinct ‘upskill journeys’ across advanced capitalist democracies. It concludes by reflecting on higher education’s role within national industrial policy strategies and its potential contribution to other socio-economic challenges faced by advanced capitalist democracies, including the green transition.</jats:p>